Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has a 30% favorable to a 40% unfavorable rating. Not great. Even among Dems, she’s at 55/31 positive/negative and among indies, she’s at only 20/positive.
So obviously it’s the perfect time for her to run for president.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and her team are positioning her to run for president or the U.S. Senate in 2028, according to people familiar with her operation.
Ocasio-Cortez’s 2028 decision could shake up the presidential race or the Senate’s leadership. A fellow New Yorker, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 74, is up for re-election in 2028.
“Her team has spent more on digital advertising than almost any other politician in 2025, and as a result, they have brought in hundreds of thousands of new small-dollar donations,” said Kyle Tharp, author of media and politics newsletter Chaotic Era, which closely tracks online spending.
It may sound dumb, but it’s not.
Schumer has long lived in fear of being primaried by AOC. Yes, not even all that many Dems like AOC, but primaries are low-turnout forums dominated by leftists. They’re how Mamdani became the party’s nominee to run New York City after only 5% of the public backed him because everyone else was establishment.
Less than 900,000 people showed up for the gubernatorial primary in 2022. That was a statewide contest in a state of nearly 20 million. Could AOC win that kind of contest if enough lefties show up? Yes.
Will the Dem establishment try to stop it? Maybe. But the establishment isn’t what it used to be.
What about a presidential run? There’s really no downside to it. Running for president will fill her coffers with money, boost her national presence and while she likely wouldn’t even win the primaries (AOC may not prove much of a draw in Iowa or New Hampshire), she’d be in a position to influence the outcome and secure pledges from whoever does win the primaries.
And is there an alternate university in which AOC clears the primaries and becomes the party’s nominee? Yes.
The Dem base hates its own party, is frustrated, looking for someone to fight for them, angry and quite possibly willing to listen to an ‘outsider’ promising to overturn the whole thing. If Newsom, Kamala and Buttigieg turn off enough voters, while tying each other up, the idea that AOC could win is not that crazy. Highly unlikely, but we’re at a national inflection point where few things can truly be ruled out anymore.
