Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez up for re-election in the midterms?

New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously became the youngest ever female member of the House of Representatives when she was elected in 2018 at just 29 years old.

That year, Ms Ocasio-Cortez had run a stunning grassroots campaign to unseat the Democratic incumbent of New York City’s 14th Congressional District, Joe Crowley – whom she and many others regarded as hopelessly complacent and ineffective – before going on to beat GOP challenger Anthony Pappas to win her seat in Congress.

She has represented the district ever since, winning re-election in 2020, and has continued to make headlines for her progressive policy positions on everything from climate and tax to women’s rights and border control.

Along with her fellow “Squad” members Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, the congresswoman more commonly known as AOC has become a hate figure to Republicans, who seem curiously preoccupied with her and intent on casting her as nothing less than the absolute personification of the “radical socialism” they so abhor.

Because the House runs biennial elections, Ms Ocasio-Cortez is seeking a third legislative term in November’s midterms and this time finds herself up against Maga Republican Tina Forte.

Ms Forte, also from the Bronx and predictably pitching herself as a straight-talker with “zero filter”, hopes to succeed where the likes of Mr Pappas and 2020’s hapless GOP challenger John Cumming failed before her and has not been shy about attacking her opponent on Twitter.

“New Yorkers will no longer accept high taxes, rising crime, bad schools, and infringements on our freedom,” she wrote in August. “AOC has supported the same radical policies ruining New York. Enough is enough.”

She has also insisted that her rival is a “national embarrassment” while cheerily positioning herself as a low tax, high growth fantasist in favour of law and order and opposed to lockdown restrictions and cancel culture.

But given that Ms Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most famous faces in her party nationwide, she is widely expected to cruise to victory at the ballot box, with election forecaster FiveThirtyEight predicting she will win close to 74 per cent of the vote in her contest against Ms Forte.

That said, she has attracted noisy protesters at recent public appearances and was heckled and booed at a town hall event in Queens on 20 October, in which activists chanted “AOC has to go!” to which she responded by dancing on the spot to the beat of their drumming.

Subsequently asked why she had responded in that manner, the representative answered on Twitter: “These homophobes were yelling Westboro Baptist-style anti-LGBT+ slogans. What do you think I’m gonna do? Take them seriously?”