Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leaving her position in Congress… and positioning herself for a fiery 2028 Democratic presidential primary run that would pit her against California Gov. Gavin – a battle between the party’s progressive and establishment wings.
Ocasio-Cortez is still deliberating whether to run for president or challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a 2028 Senate primary, but she is increasingly behaving like a presidential candidate.
The New York socialist’s chief of staff and campaign manager are both alumni of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential campaigns. Mike Casca, her chief of staff, was formerly Sanders’ deputy chief of staff and a fixture of Sanders’ political operation on the presidential campaign trail and in Congress. Her campaign manager, Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben, was the political director of Sanders’ super PAC, Friends of Bernie Sanders, before joining Ocasio-Cortez’s team in 2023.
The media is quickly rallying around Ocasio-Cortez. Pollster Nate Silver named her as the top pick for the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential nominee.
“She was going to be my first pick, and I can’t conceal that now, right?” Silver said. “Because of some of the polling, because she has this kind of progressive lane — probably not to herself, because she is younger and media savvy.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned on X, “AOC is positioning herself to run for president in 2028. Republicans, as you fight amongst yourselves, she’s building the most powerful political operation we’ve seen since Obama.”
Ari Rabin-Havt, a longtime Sanders aide, said, “She has a supporter base that, in many ways, has a larger potential width than Bernie’s.”
“She has been in the glare of the spotlight from day one and has the national campaigning experience a lot of other potential candidates are now trying to get. It would be the height of arrogance to assume she couldn’t win the 2028 nomination,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez has spent millions this year on social media to grow her supporters’ base and fill her coffers with donors in an expanding fundraising pot. She counts over 36.7 million followers across all social media platforms.
Ocasio-Cortez has ramped up her criticism of Vice President JD Vance in recent months, a potential preview of a potential 2028 matchup.
“He’s the early GOP/MAGA frontrunner [and] no one else has formed a salient anti-Vance message,” Moore said. “She has to show she can really jump into the high-stakes political arena.”
In a series of hypothetical 2028 matchups by Emerson College Polling, Vance’s three-point lead over Ocasio-Cortez was virtually identical to his lead over Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
According to online betting website Polymarket, Newsom has a 30 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination while Ocasio-Cortez has an 8 percent chance. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also sits at 8 percent.
“At this point in the 2008 election cycle – coinciding with the summer of 2005 – Barack Obama was not even considered enough of a serious candidate to be included in polls,” wrote Fox News contributor Doug Schoen. “Likewise, in the 2020 primary – which Harris was forced to withdraw from before a single vote was even cast – Harris’ highwater mark in polling two years out was 7% in an Axios poll.”