AOC can draw a crowd. The midterms will test whether her politics can win before 2028

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has had little trouble drawing a crowd.

In a final campaign swing with progressive candidates across the country, the Democratic congresswoman from New York packed rooms in Michigan’s deeply Republican Upper Peninsula, where chants of “AOC” broke out.

In Ohio and Maine, hundreds of students turned out to catch a glimpse of her as she campaigned alongside Democrats in competitive races in the Nov. 3 midterms. On Friday night, she was in California’s Central Valley, lending support to a progressive seeking to unseat a House Republican.

Ocasio-Cortez has built a national following that few other members of Congress can match. Her tens of millions of social media followers give her a platform far beyond her New York district, and her nickname, AOC, has become one of the most recognizable in American politics.

Now, as she contemplates a next move, including a possible run for the White House or the Senate, she is also offering a largely untested proposition: that her brand of progressive politics can appeal beyond the Democratic base and help the party win those competitive elections.

“We have written a check on the left, saying if you champion these policies that have popular support, we can win,” Ocasio-Cortez told a recent fundraiser. “Now it is time to cash in. Now it is time to go out and show what we are capable of.”

At 37, she is the natural heir to the political movement fostered by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that has had striking appeal for young voters. It also offers a stark contrast to the roles that the superrich like Elon Musk are trying to play in influencing elections.

“You have to be the right person at the right place at the right time,” said Doug Sosnik, who was a senior adviser to Democratic President Bill Clinton. “The year that Jimmy Carter ran and got elected president is the only year I think he could have run and gotten elected.”

The progressive brand is on the line in Maine and Michigan Senate races

In a historic concert hall in Portland, Maine, filled with college students, retirees and others, Ocasio-Cortez looked to Senate nominee Troy Jackson and acknowledged the political calculation of his appearance alongside her.

“There are a lot of consultants out here in Washington that would tell him, ‘Do not sit on a stage next to her,’” she said.

Minutes later, Ocasio-Cortez received rousing applause after an emphatic response to a question about putting “America first or Israel first.” She argued that the United States should question how it can afford wars rather than programs such as “Medicare for All.”

“Going back to her previous comment, why wouldn’t I want to sit alongside someone who just talked like that?” Jackson asked.

Maine, where Jackson is trying to defeat five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, will be pivotal in determining which party controls the Senate. So will Michigan, where Ocasio-Cortez recently appeared with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the Upper Peninsula.

In Iron Mountain, a town near the Wisconsin line in a county that President Donald Trump won by more than 30 percentage points, Ocasio-Cortez made the case for the progressive movement.

“Our problems are less left and right,” she said. “They’re top and bottom.”

Isabella Pruter, a junior at the University of Michigan, said Ocasio-Cortez has a certain star power among younger voters.

“I remember in 2020 and hearing about her name and thinking she was so cool,” Pruter said. “She really clicks with anyone who’s younger, especially for college students.”

At the New York fundraiser for El-Sayed this month, Ocasio-Cortez made clear how much she believes is at stake in Michigan. “If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere,” she said.

But not everyone agrees that enthusiasm for progressive candidates will translate into victories in competitive states.

Former Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who retired from Congress after voting to impeach Trump in 2021, said winning swing states requires appealing beyond a party’s base to independent voters.

“There’s a place in the party for her but I don’t think it’s a majority,” said Upton, who served with Ocasio-Cortez. “She’ll win New York and California, but not in other states they’d need to get to 270” electoral votes to win the White House.

Heading west to help House candidates

The next stretch of Ocasio-Cortez’s swing took her west to gauge her appeal in closely contested House districts and spend time in a state important to a potential 2028 presidential run.

In California’s Central Valley on Friday night, she rallied with Randy Villegas, a young progressive who defeated a rival backed by Democratic Party leaders in the primary.

The race against Republican Rep. David Valadao is one of the most competitive in the country. The district is nearly 75% Hispanic, though Democrats have long struggled to turn out working-class Latino voters there.

On Saturday, she campaigned in Nevada, the second state on the 2028 political calendar and one that would be crucial to her path to the nomination. Nevada, where working-class Latinos are a major force in Democratic politics, has been friendly to her brand of progressivism and overwhelmingly backed Sanders in the 2020 caucuses.

She came to support Rep. Steven Horsford, a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, near Las Vegas’ historic westside neighborhood, the cultural and historical heart of the city’s Black community.

A presidential run would require more than a theory of the case

Even if the progressive candidates Ocasio-Cortez is backing succeed on Election Day, a presidential run would present a different challenge.

South Carolina is first on the Democrats’ new early primary calendar, and Black voters make up a significant share of the state’s Democratic electorate. Sanders lost the state by wide margins in 2016 and 2020.

Jaime Harrison, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee and a South Carolina native, said Sanders’ struggles in the state were not because of his progressive politics, but because he did not put in the time needed to connect with voters.

To win South Carolina, Harrison said, “you better go to churches, you better go to union halls, you got to go to HBCUs” — historically Black colleges and universities.

“She has the talent,” Harrison said. “The question is, will you utilize that talent and focus it to do what is necessary to win on the biggest stage?”

At a rally in Columbus, Mississippi, that featured former Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate candidate Scott Colom, some voters waiting in line expressed interest in an Ocasio-Cortez presidential run, though they were not ready to commit their support.

Paula Small, a 58-year-old Democrat from Columbus, said she likes Ocasio-Cortez’s ideas but would need to learn more about her background.

“We are ready for a change. We are tired of the same politics,” Small said, adding that she believes it’s time for younger people with fresh ideas to get involved in politics.

Sosnik, the former Clinton adviser who considers himself more moderate than Ocasio-Cortez, called her an “unbelievable political talent” and described her as having at her fingertips “the zeitgeist of our times.”

But he questioned whether her appeal could extend beyond the Democratic primary electorate.

“I think she would be an extremely powerful force in the Democratic primary,” Sosnik said. “I’m skeptical that a majority of people in America would vote for her for president.”

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Associated Press journalists Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, Mike Householder in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Sophia Bates in Columbus, Miss., contributed to this report.