AOC Signals Potential Run for Higher Office in Biggest Hint Yet

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is preparing to campaign for New York Governor Kathy Hochul outside deep-blue New York City, fueling further speculation about the congresswoman’s ambitions for higher office.

Ocasio-Cortez has said she will determine her next political step after the midterm elections. Some observers believe she could seek the Democratic presidential nomination, while others expect her to challenge Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2028.

Hochul has now asked Ocasio-Cortez to appear at campaign events in more conservative areas of upstate New York, where the governor is seeking reelection against Republican Bruce Blakeman. The appearances could offer an early test of Ocasio-Cortez’s statewide appeal.

Her team is expected to organize events in Buffalo, Syracuse and Ithaca—far beyond the single Queens event Ocasio-Cortez attended on Election Day in 2022.

“I think she brings a lot of energy to the process and engages young people in particular,” Hochul told WNYC earlier this week.

“I’ve encouraged this. I have asked her and others to go statewide to create the momentum and energy we need around this next election. So I think she’ll be very well-received.”

Hochul, once known as a moderate Democrat, has increasingly aligned herself with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez in recent years.

While upstate New York tends to vote Republican – a recent poll shows Hochul trailing Blakeman there by three points – there are AOC-friendly areas within those three cities. 

Both Buffalo and Syracuse have elected Democratic Socialists of America members to citywide and statewide office, while Ithaca is home to Cornell University.

Hochul has confirmed that she will campaign alongside Ocasio-Cortez at some events, although she has not yet identified which appearances she will attend.

Blakeman has welcomed the opportunity to portray Ocasio-Cortez as a political contrast with Hochul.

“The more she campaigns for Kathy Hochul, the greater chance of my election,” he said Tuesday, according to Gothamist.

After this year’s midterm election, Ocasio-Cortez will decide whether to pursue the presidency, run for the US Senate or remain in the House representing her Bronx and Queens district.

She has also identified two deeply personal considerations: her race and her gender.

“Every element of this is something that’s within consideration,” she told The New York Times.

The 36-year-old Latina lawmaker, who is unmarried, also told the Times that her age and plans to start a family would factor into her decision.

Ocasio-Cortez has recently publicly discussed freezing her eggs, a decision she announced in August, while filming injecting herself.

She split from her longtime fiancé, Riley Roberts, although she has declined to comment publicly on her relationship status.

‘I am 36, I’m about to turn 37 years old… and what that means for my life,’ she told the Times.

‘Pretty candidly, I think about my identity,’ Ocasio-Cortez noted.

‘I’m not naïve to the fact that we are living under a very regressive administration, and I happen to be a woman, and I, you know, happen to be Latina.’

Ocasio-Cortez said she often hesitates to talk about race and gender because people can treat such comments as an excuse for why a politician might lose.

But if she is seriously considering a presidential campaign, she said she can’t simply pretend those questions do not exist.

‘It’s funny because it’s kind of like, everyone else is allowed to talk about it, but I’m not?’

Her argument is rooted in the fact that the US has never elected a woman president. Hillary Clinton came closest, winning the popular vote in 2016 but losing the Electoral College to Donald Trump.

‘That doesn’t make it impossible,’ she said.

Ocasio-Cortez also pointed to how women in politics are covered. She cited a video of herself fixing her hair this summer in the Bronx that drew 25 million views on X and a flood of sexualized comments. 

That, she said, is the ‘most brazen’ version of a bias she says she faces ‘from the right and from the left.’

Race factors in too. The daughter of a Puerto Rican immigrant, Ocasio-Cortez is one of the party’s most prominent Latina politicians and its most recognizable progressive voice — and she doesn’t dodge questions about whether that hurts her electability.

She’s also watching history: Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris are the only women to win the Democratic nomination, and both lost. ‘I absolutely empathize with the heartbreak people feel around that,’ she said, ‘and how those women were treated.’

She hasn’t ruled out challenging Schumer, and rejects the idea she owes anyone deference. 

But a presidential bid is binary for her: ‘If I were to run in this cycle, and not win, I would be done.’

The numbers also show just how complicated Ocasio-Cortez’s national political picture could be.

The numbers underscore the challenge. In a recent New York Times/Siena poll, fewer than 1 percent of Republicans viewed her favorably, versus 75 percent unfavorably. 

Among likely voters overall, just 30 percent viewed her favorably against 41 percent unfavorable — a double-digit deficit.

RealClearPolitics’ current national Democratic presidential primary polling average has Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 11 percent, trailing only Kamala Harris (24 percent), Gavin Newsom (14 percent) and Pete Buttigieg (13 percent).