How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is dropping hints about a presidential bid
For the last eight years, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been the most talked about progressive in American politics.
Ocasio-Cortez has become a household name and attracted a massive following, even in Australia.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigning in Michigan for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Bloomberg
And come 2028, she will finally be old enough to run for president.
While she hasn’t announced a bid for the top job, the 36-year-old has been hinting she may throw her hat in the ring.
“I haven’t ruled out the possibility,” she said last Sunday.
“And I’m very humbled by the tremendous amount of support out there.”
At this point in the political cycle, no serious candidate announces a run for president. Ocasio-Cortez’s non-denial is just about the closest thing to confirmation she’ll get in the race.
And Ocasio-Cortez would be a groundbreaking president for several reasons - female and Hispanic, the first to identify as a democratic socialist and the youngest ever.
She would also be the first single president for 165 years.
The last unmarried president was James Buchanan in the 1850s, who historians believe was in a relationship with a previous vice president.
Ocasio-Cortez made an immediate splash in her entry into politics, defeating one of the most powerful congressmen in a Democratic primary in 2018.
At the time, Ocasio-Cortez was 29 and had been working as a bartender.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to journalists in Washington. Getty Images
Two days later she was being interviewed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and progressives around America immediately started thinking about her running for president.
Since then, she has become an icon to young progressives and a villain to the right.
But her agenda of raising taxes on billionaires, turning America’s health care system into a program more like Australia’s, and generally sticking it to the establishment have won over countless supporters.
She is now the bookmakers’ favourite to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
In the influential early primary state of New Hampshire, she is leading in the polls.
And she has a natural base of supporters among a younger demographic, making social media content in a way that doesn’t make users cringe.
On her Instagram profile (with nearly 10 million followers) she posts videos where she speaks passionately about working class issues.
She also is willing to share aspects of her personal life, like her experiences in the past few weeks of freezing her eggs.
Ocasio-Cortez has also made moves to distance herself from some of the more unpalatable positions of the left.
Progressive candidates in the US are facing tough questions about prior positions on defunding the police, abolishing prisons or even inclusive phrasing that mainstream voters rolled their eyes at.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of a group of progressives in Congress nicknamed ‘The Squad’. AAP
Those positions have now been categorised derisively as “Woke 1.0”.
“I have a local city councilman that has this saying: ‘Woke 1 was crazy’,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday.
Her comments signalled that the progressive icon may be making some steps towards moderating ahead of a presidential run.
But to succeed, Ocasio-Cortez will need to run a gauntlet of countless other candidates all seeing 2028 as their best shot.
That includes Kamala Harris, who still leads most of the polls and hasn’t ruled out a second run.
Also likely to jump in are California Governor Gavin Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro are also potential candidates.
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