Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York built her reputation clashing with House Democratic leaders. Now, for the first time, she will take a shot at joining their ranks.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez announced on Friday that she would seek the coveted position of top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, challenging a more senior colleague to fill the vacancy.
If she succeeds and is chosen as the panel’s ranking member, the 35-year-old congresswoman would be by far the youngest Democrat to help lead a House committee. She would gain a platform not only to investigate President-elect Donald J. Trump’s administration but also to help her party chart a path back from electoral defeat.
“Democrats will face an important task: We must balance our focus on the incoming president’s corrosive actions and corruption with a tangible fight to make life easier for America’s working class,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a letter to colleagues. “I will lead by example by always keeping the lives of everyday Americans at the center of our work.”
But first she must contend with Representative Gerald E. Connolly, 74, a pugnacious, well-liked eight-term incumbent from Virginia who has pitched himself as a more seasoned investigator.
The contest promises to be a significant test of just how far one of the brightest Democratic stars has moved toward the mainstream since crashing into Congress six years ago as a left-wing insurgent.
There is little doubt that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who joined a sit-in protest in the speaker’s suite before she had even been sworn in, has grown more comfortable working within her party’s power structure.
She won a prime-time speaking slot at this year’s Democratic National Convention and served as a prominent surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, breaking with some fellow leftists along the way.
The question now is whether colleagues who once watched her ascent warily are ready to return the embrace and elevate a sometimes confrontational leader of the left-wing “squad” to be one of Mr. Trump’s most visible foils.
“When you have a secret ballot vote, there are a lot of mixed motives,” said Henry A. Waxman, a retired California congressman known for his own leadership of the Oversight Committee and for challenging the House’s seniority system.
“She is so much in the minds of American voters as an example of the left wing of the Democratic Party,” he added. “Members of the caucus have to decide if it helps or hurts the party’s future if she becomes leader of that committee, especially since she would have absolute control over what agenda she wants to pursue.”
Mr. Connolly is likely to win support not just from proponents of Democrats’ seniority system, but also from members who fear that elevating Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken democratic socialist and ardent critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, would delight Republicans and further alienate moderate voters.
“Hard work can and should be rewarded in the House of Representatives,” he wrote in a letter outlining his own bid this week. “Right now we need an expert who can parry the worst Republican attacks on our institutions and deliver reform where it is necessary and needed.”
Mr. Connolly faces his own challenges. He recently announced he had been told he has esophageal cancer and will have to reassure colleagues hat he can lead the committee while undergoing treatment.
A third Democrat who had been considering a run, Representative Ro Khanna of California, said he would support Ms. Ocasio-Cortez instead.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, in calls to colleagues, has highlighted her own experience. As the committee’s vice ranking member, she has worked closely with its current Democratic leader, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Videos of her sparring with witnesses and committee Republicans have often gone viral.
Allies said they came away from their calls with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez encouraged that she had a path, although an uphill one, at a time when many Democrats are clamoring for generational change. The race will be decided in a private caucus vote later this month.
The Oversight Committee position became available after Mr. Raskin, 61, successfully challenged Representative Jerrold Nadler, 77, of New York for the top Democratic slot on the Judiciary Committee. Younger Democrats have also challenged the aging leaders of the Agriculture and Natural Resources committees.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top House Democrat, has indicated he intends to stay neutral. So has Mr. Raskin, who said in an interview that both candidates were “excellent members of the committee.”
The Oversight Committee is among the most storied, and partisan, bodies in Congress. Republicans and Democrats alike have long used it to antagonize the White House, while occasionally working together to pressure large corporations and even Major League Baseball to change their practices.
Republicans will control the committee gavel and subpoena power in the coming Congress, but the ranking member will still have the power to at least initiate investigations and minority hearings to spotlight issues of their choice. The ranking member would also be in a position to lead the committee if Democrats retake the House majority in 2026.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s competitiveness for the seat would scarcely have been plausible not that long ago.
She was elected to the House in 2018 after defeating one of the party’s leaders in a primary. Many of her new colleagues either derided her or feared her attacks on party orthodoxy. Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker at the time, publicly belittled the influence of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her allies outside “their Twitter world.” (Their clash was dramatized this year in a play at Lincoln Center.)
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez remains divisive in certain circles. Republicans and some pro-Israel Democrats view her criticism of Israel as antisemitic. Others blame her and fellow progressives for alienating key blocs of voters by pushing for more lenient immigration policies and protections for transgender people.
But her supporters say she has an unusual talent for communicating and a populist streak that allows her to reach voters drifting away from the party. In recent years, she has slowly adopted a more pragmatic approach, winning over allies on Capitol Hill and in the Biden administration.
In her pitch to colleagues on Friday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez emphasized the need for the committee to work on multiple tracks, checking Mr. Trump’s attempts to remake the government, working across the aisle where possible and laying out an alternative policy vision for the country.
“We must do all that we can, now,” she wrote, “to mark a different future for the American people.”
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