You Know What? Maybe the Time Is Right for an AOC Presidential Bid

She’s only 36, and there’s a good argument that she should run for Senate and bide her time. But she also could be a formidable White House candidate.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sure looked like a presidential candidate this weekend. She attended a policy conference in Munich that often draws potential White House hopefuls, including Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Ruben Gallego this year. Her aides previewed her remarks to the media and told reporters who had advised her on them (former Bernie Sanders foreign policy aide Matt Duss, for one), as presidential campaigns often do. And in multiple appearances on stage, Ocasio-Cortez spoke in broad, presidential-y language, calling for a “rules-based order” and “working-class centered politics.” 

Should AOC run for president? Among those rumored to be considering 2028 candidacies, I’m most aligned with Ocasio-Cortez on policy. I would be more excited about her being in the Oval Office than any of the other rumored candidates. But I’m torn about whether I want her to run—and I suspect other progressives feel similarly.

The big reason that Ocasio-Cortez shouldn’t run is that she has a very clear path to defeat and a much hazier one to victory. It’s easy to imagine a repeat of 2020. Ocasio-Cortez seems poised to dominate among progressive voters and younger ones, as Sanders did in 2020. So she has a very strong chance of finishing second in the nomination process. At the same time, more moderate Democrats, older ones, and/or those most concerned about a candidate’s chances in the general election might coalesce behind a more centrist figure, the way they did Joe Biden in 2020. Back then, many Democrats were worried about nominating a self-identified socialist (Sanders), a woman (Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris), or a person of color (Cory Booker, Harris), fearing those characteristics would turn off swing voters in a general election. Ocasio-Cortez is all three of those characteristics in one person—and she’s also unusually young for a presidential candidate. She is 36 now and will be 39 on Election Day in 2028.

Older Democrats tend to vote at much higher rates than younger ones, so an old vs.........

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