This is an opinion from the Center.
As is often the case, if one were looking for one single quotation to summarize the state of a complicated political landscape, the most likely source of that overview comes from Donald Trump. On a campaign trip to South Carolina last Friday night, Trump laid it on the line for his most loyal supporters. Faced with a lineup of Republican House and Senate candidates who do not seem to be motivating the party faithful, Trump issued the following plea:
“What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot. Just come and vote. It's so important. So just say that I'm on the ballot one more time.”
The results of the last two midterm elections demonstrate that even while Trump has maintained an extremely strong hold on GOP voters, his ability to transfer that enthusiasm to other Republicans has been limited. A more extensive review of political history shows that Trump is far from alone in his lack of coattails for down-ticket allies. In the last 100 years, there have been only three midterm elections in which the sitting president’s party gained rather than lost congressional seats.
Facing the prospect of Democratic majorities in at least one chamber of Congress next year, Trump is raising the rhetorical stakes to what he sees as the highest possible level. A plea of “pretend that I’m on the ballot” suggests a level of presidential concern entirely appropriate given Trump’s declining poll numbers and the similarly low levels of enthusiasm that Republican voters are currently exhibiting toward this November’s elections. In a few weeks, it might sound like panic.
But if Trump’s battle cry effectively defined the current campaign season, another American politician this week offered an equally valuable lens through which to view the 2028 presidential contest. Although that election is still more than two years away, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered instructive insight into her own possible participation in that race.
Ocasio-Cortez was asked about the number of ultra-progressive Democratic candidates running for office across the country this year and the challenges many of them have had reconciling some of their past provocative policy declarations with their current need to appeal to swing voters. AOC, who certainly has no shortage of her own controversial and combative public statements on the record from her early days in Congress, offered the verbal equivalent of an eye roll, simply saying, “Woke 1.0 was crazy.”
As the DSA-adjacent wing of the Democratic Party establishes its strength with high-profile victories in Michigan, Florida, New York, and elsewhere, Ocasio-Cortez has become increasingly circumspect when asked about the possibility of seeking the presidency, saying that she has not ruled it out but offering eye-catching quotes such as “My ambition is to change the country.”
When she was campaigning earlier this month for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the contrast between her and the other speakers at the rally was noticeable. While most of the others, including Senator Bernie Sanders, harshly criticized the Democratic Party establishment for its resistance to El-Sayed’s candidacy, Ocasio-Cortez was the lone participant who emphasized the need for party unity instead. She has also recently rejected a number of far-left policy positions, such as defunding police or prisons, that she had supported earlier in her career. Her casual dismissal of “Woke 1.0” sounds a great deal like a potential candidate testing her ability to move to the political center before the 2028 campaign gets underway.
None of this means that AOC is—or isn't—running for president. But at a time when the Democratic Party’s progressive base is asserting itself more aggressively than at any time in recent memory, it’s noteworthy that one of their most talented communicators is resisting the impulse to join many of her colleagues' headlong rush to the left. A politician only thinking about re-election in the Bronx, or even a Senate campaign in deep-blue New York state, might not be quite so cautious.
Neither Trump nor Ocasio-Cortez is attempting to predict the future, and we should be wary about placing too much importance on their offhand statements in the midst of a heated election season like this one. But they are also two of the most talented political athletes in recent American history, and the way they position themselves can tell us a great deal about how they view the current environment. So just like it does not make sense to overreact, it may not be smart to underreact to them either.
Want to talk about this topic more? You can read more of Dan’s writing at www.danschnurpolitics.com.
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