FiveThirtyEight's analysis of Ayanna Pressley's win.

[fishwax]

39. I think the reason she took the chance to run against Capuano is because trump in the white house

creates urgencies and opportunities that are quite different from the urgencies and opportunities one would find in the context of an HRC presidency.

It's pretty absurd to equate what I'm saying with saying she owes her victory and her candidacy to a white man. Rather, her victory and her candidacy took place in the historical context in which we're all actually living. With Clinton in office, there would almost certainly be fewer such opportunities*, and running against a candidate like Capuano (who also supported HRC and whose policies, by Pressley's admission, aren't all that different from her own) wouldn't likely be a good opportunity in that world. I don't know what she would have done in that world, but in all likelihood it would have involved pursuing opportunities that, in that context would have been more promising and productive opportunities than challenging someone like Capuano. (Maybe she has a key position in the administration, for instance?)

I mean, do you honestly think that all the primary races we've seen this season would have featured the exact same candidates and with the exact same results if Clinton were in the oval office? Elections have consequences. One of those consequences is that, when a party establishment faces a setback as significant as 2016 there are more opportunities to challenge/rearrange/replace elements of the party establishment then when the party establishment is rolling up victories.

*on edit: fewer such electoral opportunities, I mean. In a Clinton administration, many rising stars would find that the best way to advance their career would be to find work in the administration, bolstering their credentials for higher offices down the road.