Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be just the beginning.

Less than eight months after Ocasio-Cortez stunned the political world by unseating a powerful Democratic congressman, her home state is emerging as an epicenter of House primary challenges in 2020.

Party insurgents are plotting and preparing to battle with the entrenched establishment — targeting as many as a half-dozen Congress members in and around New York City — over what it means to be a Democrat and a progressive in the age of President Donald Trump.

The coming New York uprising could result in a series of races that lay bare some of the same generational, racial, gender and ideological cleavages expected to define the 2020 presidential primary.

The activist left, in particular, hopes that Ocasio-Cortez’s victory will inspire a brush fire of Democrat-on-Democrat campaigns that will spread from New York across the nation.

Serious primary challengers for House seats have historically been rare, and it is almost unheard of for so many to emerge in one region so early in the election cycle.

Only two Democratic incumbents — including Joseph Crowley, the former No. 4 Democrat in the House, who lost to Ocasio-Cortez — were felled nationwide in 2018. But threats now seem to loom for numerous New York incumbents.

In Manhattan, Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, could be challenged, just as a California billionaire pressures him to move to impeach Trump.

On Long Island, a Democratic National Committee member is making noises about taking on Tom Suozzi. In Brooklyn, a rematch is in the works in what was one of the nation’s closest primaries in 2018. And in the Bronx and Westchester, some progressives are pushing to unseat Eliot L. Engel, a white congressman who represents a diversifying district where white residents are now in the minority — just like where Ocasio-Cortez won.

Not every challenge in New York will be run on ideological grounds. Some will be powered by more local disputes, long-standing grudges or just timely ambition. But for many progressives, the goal is to police the Democratic Party ideologically, much in the way the Tea Party pushed Republicans to the right.

“We are trying to elect more Alexandrias,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, the insurgent group devoted to recruiting progressive primary challengers nationally. “She is an example of what one victory can do. Imagine what we can do with more primary wins across the country.”

After Crowley’s defeat almost no one is seen as untouchable.

“They should be afraid,” Maria L. Svart, national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, which backed Ocasio-Cortez, said of incumbent House Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez herself appeared in a promotional video for Justice Democrats and on an organizing call for the group in November during which Saikat Chakrabarti, now her chief of staff, declared, “We gotta primary folks.”

A report that Ocasio-Cortez was seeking a Democratic challenger to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking New Yorker in House leadership, rattled the delegation. Ocasio-Cortez denied the story with her colleagues and has sought to smooth over relations.

They, in turn, have sought to establish personal or professional bonds with her, signing onto her Green New Deal, for instance — recognizing the power of her megaphone.

In an interview in January, Ocasio-Cortez said she had “put zero energy” into the question of primarying colleagues. She said the freshman class had “already changed the opinions and commitments of a lot of incumbent members already. And I think that is something we should absolutely consider.”

Whether or not Ocasio-Cortez gets personally involved, insurgent groups are plowing ahead.

“In deep blue states, Republicans increasingly don’t exist,” explained Sean McElwee, a co-founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress who has been involved in finding primary challengers in New York. “We spend a lot of time thinking about why we have right-wing corporate Democrats selling out our interests.”

McElwee called the push to recruit a challenger to Engel, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and has been in Congress for three decades, a “top priority” and he recently commissioned a poll there.

Engel easily dispatched a self-funded white male challenger in 2018 but activists are particularly keen on finding a younger candidate of color in 2020; only about a half-dozen white Democratic men represent a more diverse district in Congress than Engel.

One potential challenger mulling a run is Andom Ghebreghiorgis, a Yale graduate and 33-year-old educator in Mount Vernon, who said Ocasio-Cortez “showed there’s a hunger, especially here in New York, for representatives who reflect the changing progressive politics of their communities.”

In a statement, Engel praised the party’s “new energy” and said the fact that anyone can run “is the beauty of our electoral system.” But, he added, “I think we’re doing the people we represent and the country a disservice by focusing on 2020 primaries when we have so much to do right now in Washington.”

Nadler could face a primary from Lindsey Boylan, a former economic development adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. She said she was considering a run after watching the 2018 midterms, as “these women decided not to wait their turn because it was never going to be their turn.”

“I just can’t justify having my daughter watch me sit on the sidelines,” she said.

A huge X-factor in any Nadler primary would be billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who has pushed for Trump’s impeachment. Steyer has polled the popularity of impeachment in the district and is launching a $200,000 direct mail, television and digital ad campaign this week urging Nadler to begin impeachment hearings in his committee.

In the Bronx, Rep. José E. Serrano, in Congress since 1990, could face a challenge from Councilman Ritchie Torres, a 30-year-old often described as a rising star, who said he is weighing a run. Serrano, 75, almost faced a primary in 2018: Ocasio-Cortez initially filed paperwork to run against him before refiling days later against Crowley.

Two other Democratic New York City congresswomen who faced primary opponents in 2018, Reps. Yvette Clarke and Carolyn Maloney, expect challenges again. Clarke, who won with only 53 percent of the vote, is likely to face a rematch with Adem Bunkeddeko, the Harvard-educated son of Ugandan war refugees who has signaled he plans to run again.

“We’re at a moment of reckoning. Some people get it and some people don’t,” Bunkeddeko said. “Maybe someone’s seventh term is the charm?” he added of Clarke. “But most of us aren’t holding our breath.”

Clarke said she had reorganized her district office after the 2018 close call and is aggressively selling her progressive credentials in the more gentrified and liberal parts of the district, such as Park Slope. “I definitely will not be caught by surprise,” she said.

Maloney won more comfortably, with nearly 60 percent, but her 2018 opponent, Suraj Patel, actually won far more votes than Ocasio-Cortez. (Total turnout in the more affluent district that spans three boroughs was higher). He, too, is considering another run. “After 25 years, we need change,” Patel said. “We deserve a congressperson who isn’t recklessly indifferent to the less privileged.”

Maloney said, “Competition is good for everybody and good for democracy.” Of Patel, she added, “He was soundly defeated after all was said and done.”

Two Long Island Democrats could face 2020 primaries, too: Reps. Suozzi and Kathleen Rice.

Suozzi, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, has angered progressive activists, including on immigration, after he went on “Fox and Friends” last summer to embrace “some physical structures on the border” and defend the Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agency.

In an interview, Suozzi said he was only in favor of expanded barriers as part of a broader immigration accord. “I’m not a one-size-fits-all member of Congress,” he said, “but I work hard to represent my district.”

Some on the left have encouraged Robert Zimmerman, a DNC member who lives in the district and once ran for Congress in the early 1980s, to challenge Suozzi from the left.

Zimmerman, 64, did not rule out a run as he slammed Suozzi as a “Trump sympathizer” in an interview. “I understand it’s unusual,” Zimmerman said of a party official attacking his local congressman. “It’s more unusual to have a member not stand up for mainstream Democratic principles.”

Of Zimmerman, Suozzi declined to comment.

In the neighboring district, Rice riled up some national and local Democrats with her outspoken opposition to Nancy Pelosi’s ascent as speaker. McElwee’s group commissioned a poll of how Rice’s opposition to Pelosi was received, along with her positions on other progressive issues.

Kevan Abrahams, the Democratic leader in the Nassau County Legislature who lost a primary to Rice in 2014, is considering running again, though he said he was focused on his own re-election this fall.

Jay Jacobs, the incoming chairman of the New York Democratic Party, acknowledged that Ocasio-Cortez’s success had emboldened potential challengers. But he noted that the primary rules in New York have changed since 2018, when it was the only state in America to hold separate state and congressional elections, driving down turnout to abysmal lows. Plus, incumbents won’t be “caught sleeping.”

“It’s going to be a real fight,” Jacobs said. “And in a real fight, my money is with the incumbents.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.