AOC is the nightmarish new Donald Trump of the Left
Out with the old, in with the younger – that's the only way to explain a baffling new poll which revealed that a majority of New York Democrats would prefer to be represented by far-Left Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who the White House has already started to call the 'Democrat Party leader', than the more moderate Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It's a stinging rebuke of Schumer's leadership, at a moment when the Democrats are scrambling to reinvent themselves after last November's nationwide defeat.
The poll, which was commissioned by The Jewish Voters Action Network, pitted Schumer against AOC in a hypothetical Senate primary race. AOC led Schumer by an impossible-to-ignore 54 per cent to 33 per cent among likely Democrat voters – and 45 per cent to 33 per cent among Jewish Democrats. The latter figure is particularly eyebrow-raising considering AOC's long paper-trail of anti-Israel views and votes.
Back in 2021, AOC cried on the House floor when a bill providing funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system passed. Then in May 2024, AOC was one of the first – and certainly one of the most influential – US politicians to brand Israel's operations in Gaza a 'genocide'. In 2019, AOC helped back a resolution put forth by fellow 'Squad' member Ilhan Omar defending boycotts, in what was widely seen to be a show of support for the anti-Israel BDS movement. And last October, AOC called upon the US to impose an arms embargo against Israel.
The disconnect between AOC's strident anti-Israel viewpoints and her popularity among Jewish Democrats is striking. It is also alarming – and not just for Schumer, who at 74 is now serving his fifth term in the Senate while contending with a 55 per cent unfavourability rate. The AOC numbers arrive as the Congresswoman makes her clearest stabs yet for national-level leadership, including a potential 2028 run for the White House.
Earlier this spring, AOC joined Bernie Sanders on a cross-country 'Fighting the Oligarchy' tour, which included a stop at the influential Coachella music festival. The tenor of their message is clear: America has 'a government of billionaires, by billionaires and for billionaires'.
Despite the duo's penchant for private jet travel to ferry them from venue to venue, AOC has emerged as a viable player for the presidency. In April, Nate Silver, considered by many as America's leading political pollster, declared AOC to be his pick for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. A Yale Youth poll, meanwhile, placed AOC at a close second among younger voters against former vice-president Kamala Harris in a hypothetical match-up for the White House.
What's most concerning for both Schumer and the Democrats are the fundamentals behind Schumer's decline. From the Left, Schumer has faced attacks for being too centrist, too conciliatory – particularly when he agreed to advance a Republican funding bill in March to avoid a government shutdown. Nearly every House Democrat voted against the bill in an act of united anti-Trump resistance. Schumer's failure to join them led many progressives to call for his resignation. AOC bitingly described Schumer's vote as an 'acquiesce'.
Meanwhile, Jewish voters are turning against the Senator, who they believe has turned against Israel. 'The only thing Chuck Schumer knows about anti-Semitism is how to spread it,' declared a controversial column in the New York Post in March. The complaints against Schumer are myriad: failing to pass the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, reportedly advising Columbia University to 'ignore' the backlash over accusations of anti-Semitism on campus, and even suggesting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be voted out of office mere months after Hamas's October 7 massacre.
And so, here we are, Schumer is sinking, AOC is surging and their party is desperate for a rebrand. Which is why AOC increasingly holds all the cards. For one thing, her favourability rating holds up well, at least compared to other Democrats. But it's the tenor of AOC 'favourability' that truly makes her a threat. Her base of socialists, minorities, students and social-justice warriors are united by a near obsession with the progressive causes – identity, climate change, economic inequality – that President Trump despises most. Schumer's centrism, on the other hand, has left him looking powerless, futilely seeking compromise with a raging White House hell-bent on dismantling everything the Democrats hold dear.
AOC must know that even she could fall victim to the Left's new purity spiral. She was heckled and branded a 'war criminal' at a Town Hall-style meeting this month for not doing enough to end the Gaza 'genocide'. Which is why, for AOC to keep on winning, she'll need to engage in even more brazen acts of #resistance. That's certainly what her base wants of her. Cult-like in their affection – small donors helped propel AOC to a record $9.6 million fund-raising haul in the first three months of the year – her fans are aggressive, score-settling and confrontational. In other words, they're a lot like Trump supporters, but in reverse – all meta and no Maga.
So does that make AOC the Trump of the Left? While Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker and Rahm Emanuel position themselves as logical, moderate, electable 2028 players, AOC – like Trump – is doubling-down on the radicalism that has got her this far in the first place.
It's working for socialist New York mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani, who has surged to second place in polling for the upcoming election, despite an even more odious anti-Israel record than AOC. Of course succeeding in deep blue Gotham reveals little in regard to a national run. But if the Democrats ultimately decide they need their own 'Trump' to beat Trumpism, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be the best (and only) option they have.
David Christopher Kaufman is a New York Post columnist
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