Much like the candidates she’s striving to put into office, Rojas—Latina, a community college dropout who was working retail prior to working for Bernie—doesn’t exactly fit the profile of a typical political operative. She struggles sometimes with imposter syndrome, then reminds herself, “That’s our whole pitch: Working people deserve just as much as billionaires to run government.” She shares a revelation everyone has at some point, though most of us much later: “Through this job, I’ve realized nobody actually knows what they’re doing. So that gives me a lot of comfort.”

“Through this job, I’ve realized nobody actually knows what they’re doing. So that gives me a lot of comfort.”

In person Rojas is serious, warm, and conscientious to a fault, fretting any time she perceives that she may be inconveniencing someone. She calls herself an old soul—she’s never heard of “OK boomer” and only just caught wind of TikTok—but clearly possesses the boundless energy of...well, a 24-year-old. She’s also physically tiny, small enough to pass for a schoolkid, an impression amplified by the fact that she’s carrying the kind of giant backpack a teenager might use to lug around her social studies books. It’s early November, and she’s just arrived in New York on the 5:30 a.m. train from D.C., where she lives in a sparsely furnished apartment with her boyfriend of eight years, an artist, and her best friend, who also works in politics. We’re on the subway, lurching up 7th avenue from midtown, on our way to the Westchester suburb of Yonkers, to visit the home of JD’s other 2020 recruit: Jamaal Bowman, a middle school principal who founded a public school in the North Bronx and was a voice in New York’s movement to opt out of standardized testing.

With JD’s support, Bowman is attempting to primary Eliot Engel, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, who has been in Congress for 31 years, representing the 16th district since 2013. Rojas sees “the same recipe for success” as she did with the Ocasio-Cortez campaign: a “compelling young leader that reflects the community,” a “majority, minority district with a plurality of people of color who have been represented by an older career establishment politician that does not reflect the true diversity of that district, and who has taken millions from corporate PACs.” (Engel, it’s worth noting, is white; Bowman is black.)

In the hierarchy of kingpins to topple, Engel may not rank quite as high as Henry Cuellar, the incumbent Democrat Cisneros is looking to unseat. Cuellar voted with Trump nearly 70% of the time in the last session of Congress, has an A rating from the NRA, and is embroiled in a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by a former staffer. But that doesn’t get the New York congressman a pass. “No urgency,” is how Rojas describes him. “If you talk to residents here, they either don’t know who Engel is or can’t prescribe an ideology.” Indeed, in Bowman’s homey yellow living room, where we sit down to chat with the candidate and several members of his team, we hear exactly that. Bianca Guerrero, a 23-year-old volunteer who grew up in Yonkers, confesses she had no clue who Engel was until her senior year of high school, when a wealthy classmate had the congressman over for Thanksgiving and Instagrammed it. “I was like, ‘Who is this dude?’ He’s been in office since before I was alive?” Another volunteer, Yahaira Ruiz-Ramirez, one of Bowman’s former students, credits the principal with “always being someone I could rely on.” A third, Brandon Tizol, says Bowman cured him of some of his cynicism. “The policy prescription is important for me,” he says, “But I’m involved on a deeper level because I think Jamaal is a special person.” Bowman’s face cracks into a wide smile. “Can I have a group hug?” he asks as the meeting breaks up. “You all almost made me cry.”