“I always feel like the best way for me to run is to really kick ass at my job,” she told reporters Wednesday night when asked about her primary challenger. “I aspire to do it better than anyone who’s tried to hold this seat before.”

Ocasio-Cortez also faces opposition from a long line of Republican candidates, but Cabrera is the first established Democratic politician to take her on.

“I continue to run with the same integrity that I ran the first time around. I don’t take corporate money,” she said ahead of a town hall meeting Wednesday at a public school in Pelham Bay in the Bronx. “I’ve never accepted corporate PAC money since I’ve entered into office. I haven’t taken a single meeting with a corporate lobbyist.”