Members of the Democratic Socialists of America are pushing their organization to endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president in 2028, banking on a New York City mayoral win as proof the far left can compete nationally.
At the DSA's national convention in Chicago, members spoke openly about drafting the congresswoman from New York into the next presidential race. The organization held a closed-door meeting during the convention to set up a formal process for potentially endorsing Ocasio-Cortez, the Daily Mail reported. DSA leadership advised convention attendees not to speak with reporters, but several members talked anyway, to the Washington Post, outside the convention hall.
Their confidence stems from one event above all: Zohran Mamdani's victory in the New York City mayoral race. The 34-year-old democratic socialist's win gave DSA members a tangible result to point to, and they are not shy about what they want next.
Katie Sims, an electoral organizer from Ithaca, New York, told the Washington Post that DSA needs to "put our feet where our mouth is." Asked whether the group would consider endorsing anyone else for president, Sims did not hedge.
"No one."
That single word captures the mood inside the convention. Another DSA member, who spoke anonymously, in keeping with the organization's guidance to avoid reporters, framed the moment in personal terms.
"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."
Frances Gill, a Los Angeles-based DSA member, cast the convention itself as a staging ground for 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," Gill told the Post.
The enthusiasm is real. Whether it is grounded in electoral reality is another question entirely.
A Big Data poll conducted in late July showed Ocasio-Cortez sitting at nine percent in a hypothetical Democratic primary field, well behind former Vice President Kamala Harris at 30 percent and California Governor Gavin Newsom at ten percent. The same poll included former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senators Jon Ossoff and Mark Kelly, and Governors Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear.
Harris led across every major demographic group: Black, white, Hispanic, and Asian Democrats, plus Democrats under 30. And among self-identified Democratic Socialists, the very voters DSA claims to represent, Harris led Ocasio-Cortez by 26 points.
That last number deserves a second look. If DSA cannot deliver its own ideological base in a primary poll, the path to a national nomination narrows considerably. Nine percent in a crowded field is a starting position, not a mandate.
Still, DSA members are not wrong that something has shifted. Mamdani's mayoral win was not a fluke in a safe progressive district. It was the biggest city in the country. And Ocasio-Cortez has been building a national profile that goes well beyond her Bronx-Queens congressional seat.
Ocasio-Cortez raised a record-breaking $9.6 million over three months from 266,000 individual donors, with an average contribution of $21, Fox News reported. She has been barnstorming the country on a "Fighting Oligarchy" tour alongside Bernie Sanders, holding rallies in states Donald Trump won, Nebraska, Idaho, Arizona, and Nevada, and drawing large crowds.
Pollster Nate Silver identified Ocasio-Cortez as the most likely 2028 Democratic presidential nominee, calling her a "canny politician" and "charismatic." A Siena College poll found her favorability at 47 percent among New York state voters, compared to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's 39 percent, a gap that has fed speculation she might challenge Schumer for his Senate seat instead of running for the White House.
Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo told Fox News that the party is searching for a path forward. "We're not really sure who or what it will be, but one of the pathways there is to drill down on economic populism," Caiazzo said. "There are many people that occupy that lane and she is one of them."
Republican strategist Colin Reed was more blunt about what is driving the Ocasio-Cortez boomlet: "Chaos loves a vacuum, and right now, there is a vacuum in leadership in the Democratic Party, and thus chaos is ruling the roost."
The man whose victory gave DSA its rallying cry is not waiting around. Mayor Mamdani recently rallied with Sanders in Brooklyn to support a slate of democratic socialist congressional candidates running in New York's primaries, the Associated Press reported. The slate includes candidates challenging or replacing Democratic incumbents, a direct provocation to the party establishment.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pushed back, endorsing and campaigning for the embattled incumbents. The result is a proxy fight between the Democratic establishment and its socialist wing, with Mamdani at the center.
"The Democratic Party must change," Mamdani said at the Brooklyn rally. "The party of the past will not be what leads us into the future. We need a Democratic Party with backbone." Sanders echoed the message: "The politics and the policies of the Democratic establishment are no longer good enough."
Ocasio-Cortez has been endorsing candidates along the same lines. She backed Analilia Mejia and Adam Hamawy, both of whom won congressional races in New Jersey. She also endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan's Senate primary.
For all the convention-floor enthusiasm, DSA's relationship with its most famous member has not been smooth. The organization endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in both 2016 and 2020 but sat out the 2024 presidential race entirely. More pointedly, DSA withdrew its endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez in 2024 over what the group saw as her failure to meet conditions related to being sufficiently anti-Israel.
That rupture now appears to be healing, or at least being papered over in the name of political ambition. DSA also recently pushed to abolish the United States Senate, a position that generated controversy and that Ocasio-Cortez herself shrugged off and refused to support.
The tension is worth noting. DSA wants Ocasio-Cortez to carry its banner into a national race, but the congresswoman has shown a willingness to distance herself from the organization's more radical positions when they become politically inconvenient. That dynamic, a candidate who needs the activist energy but not the baggage, is familiar in American politics. It rarely resolves cleanly.
Ocasio-Cortez herself has declined to rule out a presidential bid, but she has not embraced one either. In a Fox News interview in late July, she offered the kind of non-answer that keeps speculation alive without committing to anything.
"I have genuinely not really weighed seriously anything past the midterm elections."
"I think that I'm taking in this information just like anybody else."
The Daily Mail reached out to both Ocasio-Cortez and DSA for comment. Neither responded.
Critics of the Ocasio-Cortez-for-president movement argue that rally crowds and small-dollar fundraising do not translate into general-election viability. The Washington Examiner noted that her far-left policy positions, however popular at packed rallies in college towns, face a much harder road with the broader electorate. Former CNN commentator Chris Cillizza, by contrast, warned skeptics not to dismiss her: "I am telling you... she is running and she is going to be more formidable than some Democrats seem to think."
DSA's push to draft Ocasio-Cortez is, at bottom, a bet that the Democratic Party's leftward drift will continue, and that the congresswoman from the Bronx can ride it all the way to the nomination. The Mamdani win in New York gives them a data point. The fundraising numbers give them a talking point. The rallies in red states give them a narrative.
But nine percent in a primary poll, and a 26-point deficit among your own ideological voters, gives them a problem. Harris dominates the early field by every available measure. Newsom, Buttigieg, Shapiro, and others crowd the lane. And DSA itself has a track record of endorsing presidential candidates who lose.
Sanders lost in 2016. Sanders lost in 2020. DSA skipped 2024 altogether. Now the organization wants to go all-in on a candidate who polls in single digits and who, just two years ago, fell short of DSA's own ideological purity tests.
Conviction is not a strategy. And enthusiasm at a convention in Chicago does not count as votes in Iowa, New Hampshire, or anywhere else that matters.
