According to the prediction betting markets, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now favorite to be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Given that the Democrats are strongly expected to win back the presidency, that suggests the 36-year-old congresswoman from the Bronx has an extremely good chance of being America’s first female Commander-in-Chief.
Indeed, she’s now also neck-and-neck with Marco Rubio in the “Presidential Election Winner” market, on 13 percent. Vice President J.D. Vance, it should be added, remains the clear leader on 23 percent. But AOC’s popularity is surging as the Democrats prepare for their big comeback moment as the midterm elections approach.
For many young left-liberals, her online phoniness is in fact an indication of authenticity
AOC hasn’t confirmed that she is running yet, of course, though her non-denials have become considerably less coy. “I haven’t ruled out the possibility,” she told ABC last week. “And I’m very humbled by the tremendous amount of support out there.”
The arguments against AOC 2028 are well-rehearsed. A dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she’s way too far to the left of America’s mainstream. She’s a goofy millennial feminist, riddled with internet-induced narcissism, who overshares and annoys people. This week, for instance, she began a series of selfie-videos “documenting” her egg-freezing process for her 9.7 million followers on Instagram. To most decent people, that’s extremely cringe-inducing.
She’s never been a senator or a governor. And for all her self-confidence and proficiency in issuing progressive soundbites, she can sound foolish – especially when discussing foreign policy. In February, she attended the Munich Security Conference, and was widely mocked for her “word salads” as she participated in various panels. She fumbled a response about the future of Taiwan, and said that Venezuela was south of the equator when it is not. “She had no idea what was happening,” remarked President Trump, gleefully.
But sounding stupid on the world stage never dented Kamala Harris’s ambition, and she too is understood to be preparing another tilt at the presidency in 2028. In fact, AOC’s real opportunity might boil down to the fact that her likely primary opponents are older and even more flawed than she is. Gavin Newsom, the oily and disaster-prone Governor of California, is now the second favorite behind her to the Democratic nominee.
What AOC has in her favor is what modern politicians crave most of all – a brand. She has international name-recognition and tens of millions of followers across social media. And, at a time when Americans are sick of living under an incompetent gerontocracy, her youth is highly appealing.
For many young left-liberals, her online phoniness is in fact an indication of authenticity. She’s still good-looking, too, which is a powerful asset in our hyper-visual age. She is capable, moreover, of shrewdly positioning herself as a sort of bridge between the populist radical left of the Democratic party, with all its organizational muscle, and the more broadly palatable center.
Though she utters all the correct progressive pieties about the “genocide in Gaza,” Wall Street greed and “healthcare for all,” AOC has been careful to eschew some of the extreme rhetoric of her fellow DSA members. Indeed, in 2024, the DSA withdrew its endorsement of her after she declined to oppose funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, voted in favor of Israel’s right to exist and hosted a panel on anti-Semitism.
She now insists she does oppose US military aid for Israel – though she still does not go far enough in her criticisms of the Jewish state for the more rabid fringes of her movement. This more nuanced position makes her more acceptable to moderates – and a public that is increasingly angry about the Iran war and the influence of Tel Aviv over Washington.
The latest Democratic primaries in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota have shown that, while hardcore DSA messaging still meets fierce resistance among even Democratic voters, a kind of DSA-lite politics – which signals its socialist virtue without ever being too explicit – can win.
And although often teased for pretending to have grown up poorer than she did, AOC does at least have a plausible working-class backstory as a Puerto Rican waitress from the Bronx. She can be a radical for normies, in other words. And, after the brash billionaire Trump, that might be all it takes to reach the White House.
This article originally appeared in Freddy Gray’s Americano newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
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