A Democratic strategist for former President Bill Clinton has ruled out the possibility of left-wing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York becoming the party’s 2028 presidential nominee.
During a Fox News interview last week with guest host Kellyanne Conway, strategist Mark Penn made a prediction that an AOC nomination would only win the Democratic Party one state.
“Break it down for us. Do people want that young, fresh blood, a little bit socialist? Are they going to go back to someone like Kamala Harris and think if she had more time?” Conway, a GOP strategist and pollster, said. “Are we missing the point here altogether? Are there governors or Stephen A. Smith?
“And by the way, what are the attributes that the Democratic Party is looking for? Is it the economy? Is it immigration? Is it social justice? Is it climate? What’s going on? Tell us about the polls in your party,” she said.
“Well, you know that in a situation like this where the party essentially has none of the branches of government and lost an election significantly and handily, that there is no leader of the party. And AOC is trying to fill that vacuum. Bernie Sanders, frankly, he could get, as we’ve seen, 30, 40 percent of a Democratic primary,” Penn began.
“So if she’s going to have a significant base, he’s clearly passing the torch to her. And there is a strong left-wing base in the Democratic Party. Remember, Democrats got one state in 1972, and they got one state in 1984,” he continued.
“So the Democratic Party has been in the wilderness multiple times when it goes too far to the left. And so the possibility of that is real. I think in terms of Harris, no way she is going to come back in a presidential race, no way that she would ever win a presidential primary,” Penn predicted.
“But Adam Schiff is a senator, believe it or not, from California, after his completely disreputable record in the House. And so I don’t think it’s far-fetched that she might wind up governor of California, because California does not seem to kind of wake up to the nightmare that its elected officials have put itself in, as a state that’s losing population, has an incredible erosion of its tax base as a fiscal situation, a crime situation, a transportation situation. So I don’t know what’s going to happen in the long term,” Penn said before making a shocking prediction about AOC as the party’s ’28 nominee.
“California seems to be solidly in the Democratic camp. So she could come back as governor. She’s not going to be the presidential candidate,” he said of Harris before making a shocking prediction about AOC as the party’s ’28 nominee. “I don’t think AOC is going to be the nominee of the party. If it is, I think it will be back to one state.
All said, however, a more likely path forward for Ocasio-Cortez is primarying Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
A recent survey by Data for Progress found that Ocasio-Cortez is ahead of Schumer by 19 points in a hypothetical 2028 Democratic primary contest.
Although Schumer still retains his title as leader of his party in the upper chamber, his popularity among the party’s base appears to be rapidly declining.
Between March 26 and 31, 767 likely Democratic primary voters in New York were asked whom they would support in a hypothetical primary matchup between Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez. The results were striking: 55% backed Ocasio-Cortez, while only 36% chose Schumer.
The findings were not anomalies. The poll revealed that Schumer had the highest disapproval rating among all Democratic figures tested, whereas Ocasio-Cortez ranked among the most popular, trailing only Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
