Last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the brash, 36-year-old, Democratic socialist congresswoman, was on a barn-storming tour of rural Upstate New York, far from her progressive Queens base. The timing and location are at once completely curious and entirely logical. 
 
Now in her eighth year of government, AOC has emerged as the leading figure among the Democrats’ progressive left wing – and both a potential presidential and senate candidate in 2028. So the question on insiders’ minds in both Washington and Albany is: which job is AOC auditioning for, the presidency or senatorship?
 
The truth is that it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that AOC is auditioning for something. And most crucially, she clearly realises that despite her youth, this might be the only shot that she has at higher office for the next decade – if not beyond. “It’s very all or nothing,” she said in a recent interview from The New York Times. “If I were to run in this cycle and not win, I would be done.”

Still, Ocasio-Cortez has no fantasies about the obstacles that she faces in preventing her political obsolescence: criticism came fast this summer when she released a video series announcing her decision to freeze her eggs to prolong her fertility. The move hinted at a future campaign of some sorts but, while heartfelt and endearing to many (oversharing to others), it resulted in AOC having to reveal an end to her decade-long relationship with her (now former) fiancé, Riley Roberts. The media-fuelled saga was brief but unnecessarily messy – and amateurish for a would-be national campaign. 
 
AOC also endured a series of geopolitical fumbles at February’s heavy-hitter-filled Munich Security Conference. The gaffes, which included locating Venezuela below the equator, positioned her as a lightweight not yet ready to lead beyond her district of devotees back in Queens.

But timing is everything. Never before have the sun, moon and a handful of constellations aligned so portentously for a major candidate as they have for AOC right now. The socialist wing of the Democrats is not merely having a moment – it’s owning it. Thanks to the election of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani last year, the socialists have secured subsequent mayorships and congressional wins nationwide.

Perhaps most consequentially, Americans are buying what they are selling. According to a recent Gallup poll, 43 per cent of Americans now harbour positive views of socialism. No candidate is poised to better benefit from this ideological makeover than AOC. 
 
As for the races themselves, a senate campaign would be the easiest move for AOC – she would almost certainly win the seat currently occupied by Charles Schumer, the Democrats’ 75-year-old éminence grise with the lowest approval rating of any leading politician in the US. But then there’s the presidency. AOC might be a national figure but she’s still reaching for the bipartisan profile of former vice-president Kamala Harris and California governor Gavin Newsom, who are both likely to run in 2028. But honestly, so what?

AOC’s star power has made her especially adept at raising money. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, she raised nearly $10m (€8.9m) but her cash-collection efforts have yet to be tested at the presidential level. Most crucially, AOC knows how to wow a crowd in authentic and ingenious ways.

While many on the left sat bemoaning Donald Trump’s return to office last year, AOC hit the road with Bernie Sanders on their widely watched Fighting Oligarchy tour. Not only were the pair received like rock stars but the tour proved AOC’s knack for skirting party conventions to rally their base.
 
Her egg-freezing displayed similar populist, feel-good theatrics. Yes, she had to awkwardly disclose her singleton status but AOC still managed to frame a personal medical decision as a tool for female empowerment, while the Trump administration, she says, compromises reproductive freedoms. This is the type of identity-politics mastery that Harris tried – but ultimately failed – to achieve in 2024 and demonstrates why AOC, rather than Newsom, could prove to be Harris’s true foil. 
 
As for that Munich mess-up, Trump had even less foreign experience than AOC when he ran in 2016 and, a decade later, he’s still in office working to reshape the planet. 
 
In the end, AOC’s ability to raise money could propel her either to the Senate or towards the White House in two years, especially if the Democratic socialists further consolidate their influence with big midterm wins next month. And if so, AOC will not merely be riding a wave – she might be the turn of the tide.  
 
David Kaufman is a contributing writer at Monocle. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

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