Upstart to challenge B'klyn vet

ALBANY – A state Senate candidate in Brooklyn is hoping to become the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Julia Salazar, who like Ocasio-Cortez is a Latina democratic socialist and first-time candidate, is seeking to challenge veteran state Sen. Martin Dilan (D-Brooklyn) in the Sept. 13 state Senate primary.

On her campaign website, Salazar, 27, says north Brooklyn is at a “crossroads” and she wants to focus on affordable housing and immigrant communities.

Salazar, a community organizer who was born in Colombia, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Those close to her say she has lived in New York for a decade, including the past four years in Bushwick, after she was forced out of a Harlem apartment after helping to organize tenants to resist an abusive landlord.

On her website she vows to fight for “a democratic socialist society.”