Why AOC Should Run for President

Two words: Analilia Mejia

AOC at Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration, 2026. New York Mayor’s Office

Given the ongoing nightmare of the Trump presidency and the terrifying erosion of our democracy, the 2028 election feels like it’s about a billion years away right now. Nonetheless, for many candidates, the primary has already begun. California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former VP Kamala Harris, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and a range of other politicians are pretty clearly running for president now, whether or not they make it to the primary.

One politician who seems to be running—with possibly some ambiguity— is NY representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez went on a nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” with Vermont Senator and perennial left presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders in 2025. That was a strong signal that Sanders was passing the torch and left leadership—including presidential aspirations— to his younger colleague.

Ocasio-Cortez has also been fundraising on behalf of more centrist colleagues like Mary Peltola, who is running for Senate in 2026—a sign that AOC is working to defuse the establishment opposition which helped sink Sanders in 2016 and 2020. And she’ s shortly embarking on a trip abroad to speak at the Munich Security Conference and burnish her foreign policy credentials.

Ocasio-Cortez has not made a formal announcement, and has signaled she won’t do so until 2027. But she’s doing the sorts of things that you’d expect a presidential contender to do. And that’s a good thing, because she would be a great president—and 2028 looks like the year she could win the nomination and the presidency.

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AOC would be a good president

There are a lot of reasons to believe AOC would be an excellent president. She’s got a strong grasp on policy details, and uses those to highlight and advance, rather than to obscure and deflect from, moral goals. She’s been a legislator for 8 years and has formed strong bonds both with ideological allies on the left and with more moderate legislators. She is someone who could both set ambitious goals and organize coalitions to achieve them—much like Biden, another longtime legislator.

She would not, however, share Biden’s major weakness—a ossified commitment to bipartisan norms and to transcendent normality as a value. The biggest problem with Biden’s presidency (next to the disgusting and violent Zionism, which AOC also does not share) was his bedrock belief that the American people wanted things to return to the status quo circa 2013. That led him to conclude that prosecuting fascists, or prioritizing fascist-proofing the country, would be unpopular and unnecessary.

Biden thought you could defeat fascism by just doing good things for working people and winning every election. It’s clear that AOC knows better. She’s called for sweeping prosecutions of fascists at every level of the administration. She’s said we need to expand the Supreme Court. She’s an enthusiastic supporter of DC statehood. She wants to abolish the filibuster. She wants to abolish ICE.

More than any other likely candidate in 2028, knows that Democrats need to fight for their values by using the power they have to crush fascism, rather than just counting on electoral wins to solve all their (and our) problems. Post Trump, we need a transformative Democratic president. AOC could be that.

AOC can win

Historically, progressive outsider candidates have not done well in Democratic primaries. More, the two women that Democrats ran for president both lost. As a result, a lot of people believe that AOC can’t win, and/or that voting for her would sink Democratic chances.

I wrote in early 2025 about why Democrats should not be afraid to nominate women and non white men in general. But I think we’ve got more evidence about the 2028 cycle now, and all of it points to these fears being extremely misguided.

Democrats are vastly overperforming in special elections; they have gotten 13 point swings on average, and Republicans haven’t flipped a single Democratic seat since 2024.

More, though, progressives have been overperforming, suggesting that the backlash against Trumpism is damaging not just Republicans, but Democratic centrists. The most obvious case here is the victory of Zohran Mamdani, a pro-Palestinian Democratic socialist, who beat disgraced centrist assholes Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams in the New York mayoral election of 2025 and led the New York based Working Families Party to a great year across the board.

And progressive strength continues into 2026; socialist Analilia Mejia just defeated centrist Tom Malinowski for a New Jersy House seat in a shocking upset. Other progressive challengers, like Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois and Brad Lander in New York look well positioned to make strong showings, or win, against more establishment candidates.

Part of what’s happened here is that progressives have learned from past failures. Sanders’ presidential campaigns both ran aground on his anti-Democratic messaging; Democratic primary voters tend to like Democrats, and claiming that both parties are the same, or that they are really just one big uni-party, goes down poorly. Instead, candidates like Mamdani and Abughazaleh have positioned themselves as the ones standing up for Democratic values against an establishment that is too willing to compromise with Trump.

This messaging works so well right now because Democratic voters are desperate for candidates and representatives who are willing to fight Trump implacably on all fronts. Fight/not fight doesn’t line up perfectly with left/center. But it does give progressives an advantage when they are willing to embrace policies such as abolishing ICE, expanding the Supreme Court, defending trans people’s rights, or opposing Trump’s Israel policy, while centrists huff and hum and propose half measures.

All of which means that this cycle is a unique opportunity for a young, progressive presidential candidate with strong roots in the party to run as the real Democrat in the race. Ocasio-Cortez is in a lot of ways even better positioned than Obama was in 2008 when he ran to the left of Clinton with an anti-war message and a promise of change and renewal in the wake of the Iraq war and economic collapse. I think Democratic voters are even angrier now than they were then and even more eager to embrace someone who is the antithesis of the Republicans and of a Democratic default that was for too long too accommodating of fascist bullshit.

When it’s your time, roll the dice

AOC is only 36; you could argue that she’s got a lot of time and doesn’t need to attempt a run this cycle. She could instead run (and very likely win) Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s New York Senate seat; his term ends in 2028 and he’s so unpopular he will probably either retire or lose his primary. Wouldn’t it make more sense for AOC to spend a term or two in the Senate and then run for president when she’s in her late 40s or early 50s? What’s the rush?

It’s true that AOC might well be able to win a presidential bid in 2040 or 2044. But the thing about the future is it’s difficult to predict. Obama saw an opportunity and took it even before his first Senate term was over because he realized that you can’t be sure that the stars are ever going to align again. Right now there’s an unprecedented backlash against fascism and also an unprecedented threat to democracy. There may be another chance for AOC—and then again maybe we won’t have anything like free and fair elections in 2044 if someone doesn’t step into the breach and fight for democracy now.

No one person can save us. But I think most people of good will would agree we need an implacable foe of fascism in the presidency as soon as possible. AOC seems better positioned to be that person than almost anyone. I hope that come 2027 she thinks so as well.