Running! is a Teen Vogue series on getting involved in the government.

Julia Salazar is a 27-year-old, Latina, a Democratic Socialist feminist, and first-time candidate for office. She is running for state senate in New York’s 18th district, in North Brooklyn, where she’s challenging an eight-term incumbent state senator whom she hopes to defeat in the Democratic Party on September 13. Salazar’s bold and progressive platform, including Medicare for all, free higher education, tenant protection, decriminalization of sex work, and more, has earned her a large and enthusiastic team of volunteers and considerable popular support.

Teen Vogue chatted with Salazar about why she’s running for State Senate, if she’s the new Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the role of gender in the race, how her opponent has misrepresented her, what being a Democratic Socialist feminist means to her. (Editor’s note: Katie Halper, who conducted this interview, is also a member of DSA and knows Julia Salazar interpersonally.)

The interview below has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Teen Vogue: You’re one of the insurgent candidates taking on the democratic machine and, in your case and some other cases, the old boys club. Cynthia Nixon is challenging Andrew Cuomo, Jumaane Williams is challenging Kathy Hochul, Zephyr Teachout is challenging Tish James and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez challenged and beat Joe Crowley.

You’ve all endorsed and been endorsed by each other. You’ve been compared to Ocasio-Cortez, in particular. Is that a fair comparison?

Julia Salazar: I adore Alexandria and fully supported her campaign and was deeply inspired by her primary campaign victory in June. There are obvious similarities but I think that what people need to understand is that what's most similar about us is the result of us being part of the same movement. It's so much more meaningful than just both of us being in our late 20s, Latina millennials, running in New York. And it's telling that people don't have the political imagination for more than one progressive, Latina, democratic socialist candidate. We need to change that by running more progressive women of color and working-class women for office.

TV: Has gender been an issue at all during your campaign? If so, how?

JS: Yeah, absolutely. It is generally very difficult as a young woman to be taken seriously in politics and when running for office. I'm constantly being told to smile more, while at the same time to be as serious as possible so that I am taken seriously. I think often it's in the way that people offer me unsolicited advice specifically about how to present myself as a young woman. I think it’s also in the way that, in the first few months of this campaign, Senator Martin Malavé Dilan totally ignored me and pretended I didn’t exist. Then, after the first public campaign finance filing deadline, we showed that we outraised him 2-to-1 while taking absolutely no corporate money or real estate developer money. And after that he seemed to pivot from ignoring me to then trying to fight me in court and get me thrown off so that the voters wouldn’t even have a choice.

It’s pretty standard, especially for a machine candidate or an incumbent, to try to kick their opponent off the ballot by challenging their petition signatures. Dilan’s lawsuit was very weak and unsubstantiated: he tried to challenge me on the basis of residency. We had to go to court, and the judge ruled to dismiss Dilan’s lawsuit. So then Dilan appealed at the county level, and his appeal was unanimously denied by a panel of judges. So lastly, he appealed in Albany for a final time — and they denied his appeal, too. So, I’m on the ballot.