Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's surprise victory last month in the Congressional primaries has invigorated the campaigns of other underdogs, like Julia Salazar, 27, who is running to oust eight-term incumbent State Senator Martin Malavé Dilan for his North Brooklyn district. 

U.S. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Councilman Antonio Reynoso and the advocacy group Make the Road Action came out to support her at a rally Monday in Bushwick.

"We cannot afford anything less than brave, committed leadership representing our community in Albany," Velazquez said, citing Salazar's stances on tenants' rights and universal healthcare in her support.

Salazar, who grew up between Colombia, where her family is from, and Florida, moved to New York to attend Columbia University as a teenager. She's lived in Bushwick for the last four years, and worked as an organizer with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and Democratic Socialists of America, which have also endorsed her. 

"It's time that we finally replace our state senator with someone who has advocated for tenants and the community in Brooklyn and will be able to do it in Albany," she said.

The deck has long been stacked against insurgent candidates like Salazar. But according to political strategist Evan Thies of Pythia Public Affairs, that could be changing. 

"Any incumbent has to be feeling the heat this year, no matter how accomplished they are, how long they've been in office, what they're record are on the issues," he said. "People are demanding higher standards. They're not going to allow complacent elected officials who may be a decade or two into their careers and mailing it in a bit to go and not go and do the work."

Dilan and his son Erik, a state assemblyman, rose to power during a different era, and with significant help from the now-disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who died in 2015. Thies said the senior Dilan may be at a disadvantage now given the discontent with politics in Washington, and the shifting demographics of North Brooklyn.

"The party has splintered," he said. "It's become not nearly as monolithic, politically as it had been in past years and that has created an opening for people like Julia Salazar."

The state primary is on Sept. 13, a Thursday. Dilan's office has not returned a request for comment.