Members of the Democratic Socialists of America are openly pushing to endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president in 2028, emboldened by a string of far-left primary wins, even as early polling shows her trailing badly in her own ideological lane.
At the DSA's national convention in Chicago, the organization held a closed-door meeting to establish a formal process for potentially endorsing the New York congresswoman's White House bid, the Daily Mail reported. The move comes on the heels of Zohran Mamdani's election as mayor of New York City, a result DSA members now treat as proof that their political model can scale far beyond safe progressive districts.
DSA members interviewed by the Washington Post outside the convention made no effort to hide their intentions. Katie Sims, an electoral organizer from Ithaca, New York, said the group needs to back its rhetoric with action:
"We really gotta put our feet where our mouth is."
When asked whether the DSA would consider endorsing anyone other than Ocasio-Cortez, Sims was blunt: "No one."
Another member, speaking anonymously, the DSA advises convention attendees not to talk to reporters, framed the moment as a decade in the making:
"We've all known Alex. We've all organized with her over the years. This is the first time in 10 years I feel like she has a real shot at the presidency."
The organization's confidence is not baseless. Beyond Mamdani's mayoral win, Ocasio-Cortez-endorsed candidates Analilia Mejia and Adam Hamawy won Congressional races in New Jersey. In Michigan, AOC backed Abdul El-Sayed in a Senate primary. Frances Gill, a Los Angeles-based DSA member, told the Washington Post that the organization's every move is now oriented around 2028:
"Everybody is well aware that everything we're doing right now as DSA is either setting us up or not setting us up to be serious political players in the 2028 election."
Two DSA-backed candidates also defeated incumbent Democrats in New York primaries, mirroring the kind of upset that first launched Ocasio-Cortez onto the national stage in 2018. The Washington Examiner reported that the DSA's growing electoral dominance has created something of a power vacuum in the Democratic Party, positioning AOC as the faction's natural standard-bearer.
The string of victories has also revived talk about whether Ocasio-Cortez might challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his seat in 2028, a scenario some strategists view as equally plausible. Schumer holds a 49.4 percent unfavorable rating and only a 25.1 percent favorable rating among Democrats, numbers that would make any incumbent nervous. Democratic strategist Sathvik Kaliyur told the Examiner that Schumer's "days are numbered" regardless of DSA involvement.
But other political observers believe a Senate race would be a detour. Some have speculated Schumer himself might prefer to see AOC chase the presidency rather than come after his seat, a calculation that says more about the party's internal dysfunction than about any genuine enthusiasm for her candidacy.
For all the energy inside the Chicago convention hall, the numbers outside it are less encouraging. A Big Data poll of Democratic primary voters conducted in late July showed former Vice President Kamala Harris leading the field at 30 percent, double the tally of California Governor Gavin Newsom at ten percent and triple Ocasio-Cortez's nine percent. The poll also included former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senators Jon Ossoff and Mark Kelly, and Governors Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear.
The most striking figure: Harris led Ocasio-Cortez by 26 points among self-identified Democratic Socialists. If AOC cannot win her own ideological base in a national survey, the DSA's convention-floor enthusiasm starts to look less like a movement and more like a faction talking to itself.
Harris led among Black, white, Hispanic, and Asian Democrats and among Democrats under 30 by what the poll described as "impressive margins." That breadth of support presents a structural problem for any challenger running from the left, especially one whose appeal has historically been concentrated among young, urban progressives.
New Hampshire tells a slightly different story. A state-level Democratic primary poll showed AOC leading at 22 percent, up from 14 percent in October 2025, with Buttigieg close behind at 21 percent and all other candidates in single digits. But New Hampshire's small, activist-heavy primary electorate has a long history of rewarding insurgent candidates who flame out nationally.
As we have previously noted, strong early-state numbers do not necessarily translate into the broad coalition a Democratic nominee needs to survive a full primary calendar.
Ocasio-Cortez herself has maintained a studied ambiguity. In a late-July appearance on Fox News, she said she had "genuinely not really weighed seriously anything past the midterm elections." She added: "I think that I'm taking in this information just like anybody else." She did not rule out a presidential bid.
That non-denial has become a pattern. Vice President JD Vance publicly named her as the Democrats' likely 2028 frontrunner, and she declined to push back. The DSA NYC co-chair, Gustavo Gordillo, told the New York Post that "many in the organization would be very thrilled" if she ran, adding that "ultimately that's her decision, and we'll be in conversation."
Ocasio-Cortez's own public response to the Post was characteristically evasive: "Could I be president? Could I not be president? Maybe, maybe not."
Meanwhile, the groundwork is being laid. National Review reported that AOC has launched what amounts to a national tour without officially calling it one, and that Democratic operatives expect she could raise more than $100 million from small-dollar donors alone. She has attended the Munich Security Conference, joined Bernie Sanders on a nationwide tour, and visited Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the kind of itinerary that belongs to someone running for something bigger than a House seat.
The DSA's push to crown Ocasio-Cortez as its 2028 standard-bearer glosses over a messy recent history between the organization and its most famous member. In 2024, the DSA's national organization withdrew its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez, citing her failure to meet conditions related to being sufficiently critical of Israel. That same year, the DSA declined to endorse any presidential candidate at all, a notable retreat after backing Bernie Sanders in both 2016 and 2020.
The reconciliation appears to be driven more by political opportunity than by any resolution of those underlying disagreements. Ocasio-Cortez, for her part, has not always been a reliable ally to the DSA's more radical positions. She shrugged off and refused to support the organization's public push to abolish the United States Senate, a proposal that most voters, including most Democrats, would regard as somewhere between fringe and absurd.
Senator Ted Cruz has predicted both an AOC presidential bid and a Mamdani Senate run as evidence of the Democratic Party's leftward drift. Whether that drift represents genuine electoral strength or a factional takeover that alienates the party's broader base is the central question hanging over the DSA's 2028 project.
National Review's Jim Geraghty raised a pointed concern about Ocasio-Cortez's preparedness for the scrutiny a presidential campaign brings. At the Munich Security Conference in February, she gave what Geraghty described as incoherent answers when asked a yes-or-no question about defending Taiwan. His assessment was direct:
"If you need to be wrapped in bubble wrap to get through a national tour, you are not going to get through the challenges of a presidential campaign."
Ocasio-Cortez has no executive experience, no governorship, no mayoral office, no agency leadership. Her legislative record consists of House service from a safe blue district. National Review also flagged an unresolved tax warrant against her publishing company, the kind of minor but persistent vulnerability that opposition researchers live for.
None of this appeared to trouble the DSA members gathered in Chicago. Their confidence rests on Mamdani's victory, a handful of primary upsets, and the belief that the American electorate is ready for a self-described democratic socialist in the Oval Office. The polling, the preparedness gaps, and the organizational history all suggest otherwise, but movements built on conviction have never let inconvenient data slow them down.
The DSA can hold all the closed-door meetings it wants. Winning a convention vote and winning a country are two very different things, and so far, the only race Ocasio-Cortez has proven she can win is the one where her voters already agree with her.