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    "parsed_content": "The Race for CongressPrimary Season TakeawaysVoting by MailLatest PollsCompetitive RacesSeat PickupsTimes ExclusiveAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 2028: \u2018Life Doesn\u2019t Wait for You to Be Ready\u2019In a wide-ranging interview, the New York congresswoman offered her most detailed insight yet into how she is thinking about a possible presidential run.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has several choices ahead of 2028: Keep her House seat, run for the Senate or seek the White House.Credit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesTimes ExclusiveAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 2028: \u2018Life Doesn\u2019t Wait for You to Be Ready\u2019In a wide-ranging interview, the New York congresswoman offered her most detailed insight yet into how she is thinking about a possible presidential run.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has several choices ahead of 2028: Keep her House seat, run for the Senate or seek the White House.Credit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTShare full articleBy Shane GoldmacherShane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent.Sept. 22, 2026Updated 9:46 a.m. ETRepresentative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said she will weigh the decision of whether to run for president after the midterm elections. The decision is clearly already weighing on her.In an interview with The New York Times, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez revealed the electoral equations she is crunching and the mental \u201cmath\u201d she is calculating as she approaches the biggest crossroads of her political career.Her gender. Her ethnicity. Her electability. Her eggs. Her movement. Her moment.\u201cThere\u2019s an argument that some make that this is a very unique political window and, oftentimes in politics, you do only get one shot,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t \u2014 and just in life in general \u2014 life doesn\u2019t wait for you to be ready for things. Sometimes life just makes things ready for you.\u201dMs. Ocasio-Cortez, 36, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, is now in her eighth year representing parts of the Bronx and Queens. She could simply keep winning re-election. But in 2028, she has two other choices: run for the White House, or seek the seat now held by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cEvery element of this is something that\u2019s within consideration,\u201d she said.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez weighed aloud the pros and cons of running for president with unusual candor, sounding less strategic than searching, as if the right answer were somewhere nearby.At times, she played the part of political pundit handicapping her own potential presidential candidacy from afar. At others, she voiced the unvarnished concerns of a woman who just opened up on Instagram (\u201cBloat check!\u201d) about fertility treatments preparing for a possible future pregnancy.\u201cI think about it personally,\u201d she said of a White House run. \u201cI am 36, I\u2019m about to turn 37 years old \u2014 and what that means for my life.\u201d\u201cPretty candidly, I think about my identity,\u201d Ms. Ocasio-Cortez went on. \u201cI\u2019m not na\u00efve 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. And I think that there\u2019s a lot of conversation about electability, and I don\u2019t kind of shy away from those realities.\u201dMs. Ocasio-Cortez arrived in Congress as a left-wing outsider and remains one of the party\u2019s most progressive voices. Some party strategists are urging Democrats to move to the middle. But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was heartened by \u201cthe ascendance for the first time\u201d of progressives like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan who toppled big-money candidates in this year\u2019s Senate primaries.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cI have a tremendous amount of fear over the corruption of our political system,\u201d she said.She spoke by phone last week as she recovered in her Washington apartment from Covid. She had called to discuss an upcoming swing through upstate New York and a cash transfer to help Democrats in her home state.She wound up describing much more.ImageMs. Ocasio-Cortez, 36, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, is now in her eighth year representing parts of the Bronx and Queens in New York.Credit...Kenny Holston\/The New York Times\u2018Everyone else is allowed to talk about it, but I\u2019m not?\u2019Ms. Ocasio-Cortez knows that broaching the roles of race and gender in politics can be unpopular, even unappealing. \u201cI often hesitate to even talk about it,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause people then just register it as an excuse or a complaint.\u201dShe is talking about it anyway.\u201cIf you\u2019re asking me about the things that I weigh, of course, that\u2019s part of what I weigh,\u201d she said of running for president as a woman. \u201cIt\u2019s funny because it\u2019s kind of like, everyone else is allowed to talk about it, but I\u2019m not?\u201dShe described the gender gap as a fact of American electoral politics: Roughly 27 percent of Congress is female, she said, and 0 percent of past presidents.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIt\u2019s not just that a five-second video of her adjusting her hair in the Bronx this year drew more than 25 million views on X and a tsunami of sexualized replies (\u201cthat\u2019s the most kind of, like, brazen and obvious forms of it,\u201d she said). It\u2019s how \u201cfemale politicians are discussed, approached, covered\u201d overall.\u201cWhat is very odd about our political culture is that for some reason when you raise it, people just freak out,\u201d she said. \u201cThey get so defensive at the mere suggestion that gender could play a role.\u201dShe made plain that this was a problem \u201cindependent of ideology.\u201d\u201cI experience it tremendously \u2014 from the right and from the left,\u201d she said.The losses of the only two women ever to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, loom large. \u201cIt may or may not be related, but I absolutely empathize with the heartbreak that people feel around that and, frankly, how those women were treated,\u201d Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, the only women ever to win the Democratic presidential nomination, both lost in the general election.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times; Hiroko Masuike\/The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTShe said she had discussed the issue with Ms. Harris, who is also considering a 2028 run, but she declined to describe their private conversations.\u201cThis country has never elected a female president. Why are we pretending that this is not a factor?\u201d Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said with a laugh. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t make it impossible, but to act as though it\u2019s not a factor in anything ever is really a form of, like, denialism.\u201dSign up for the On Politics newsletter. It's a pivotal moment for American politics. Join us for 2026 and beyond. Get it sent to your inbox.Little desire for \u2018deference\u2019Few politicians can command public attention like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Her egg-freezing set off a national conversation about fertility. Her offhand remark on ABC News that \u201cWoke one was crazy\u201d spawned a thousand takes on her thinking and her party\u2019s evolution.No matter the size of her megaphone, it is also true that no House member has ascended directly to the presidency in modern history. (Few see any applicable lessons in the election of James A. Garfield in 1880.) Even if she is one of the House\u2019s most prolific fund-raisers, a potential attempted leap to the White House would be essentially unprecedented.The Senate seat in New York could be an alluring alternative.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who won her seat by toppling a powerful Democratic House leader in a 2018 primary, did not rule out the possibility of challenging Mr. Schumer \u2014 even if he helps Democrats win a Senate majority in the midterms.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cThat would honestly be the best possible problem we could have as a country,\u201d she said of the idea that a Democratic Senate majority could further complicate her 2028 choices. She added, \u201cWe\u2019re working hard to have that problem, and I\u2019ll cross that bridge when I get to it.\u201dMr. Schumer, 75, has not announced his own 2028 plans.ImageSenator Chuck Schumer, 75, has not announced his own 2028 plans. Credit...Eric Lee for The New York TimesMs. Ocasio-Cortez made this much clear: She is not waiting on anyone other than herself, whether that pits her as a primary challenger to a potential Senate majority leader or to a former vice president.\u201cI don\u2019t think that my decisions would come down to deference,\u201d she said.Why a White House run would be \u2018very all or nothing\u2019Back in May, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez went viral for an answer she gave at a forum with David Axelrod, the onetime adviser to former President Barack Obama, in which she said her ambitions were not a \u201ctitle or a seat.\u201d\u201cMy ambition is way bigger than that,\u201d she said. \u201cMy ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go, but single-payer health care is forever, a living wage is forever, workers\u2019 rights are forever, women\u2019s rights, all of that.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMr. Axelrod said in an interview that he believed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez when she spoke about her motivations.\u201cShe is very honest in her communications. It\u2019s what makes her disarming,\u201d he said. \u201cHer bottom line is producing something for the people she\u2019s fighting for, so I think this decision is partly seen through that prism.\u201dIn her interview with The Times, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez repeated variations of that line about her lack of interest in \u201cmy title.\u201d But she also expressed a keen awareness of the realities that House members must seek re-election every two years and that losing would mean being out of office entirely.\u201cIt\u2019s very all or nothing,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I were to run in this cycle, and not win, I would be done.\u201d\u201cAnd I am not opposed to that,\u201d she added. But it was also a consideration. \u201cThat, in and of itself, does not exclude the decision,\u201d she finally said. \u201cBut it has to make it worth it.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTA successor to Bernie Sanders?Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her mentor and ally, is 85. Many on the left see Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as his natural successor. The two politicians\u2019 \u201cFighting Oligarchy\u201d tour in 2025 drew huge crowds.\u201cThese rallies were bigger than the sum of their parts,\u201d Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. \u201cWhen Bernie was on his own, or when I\u2019m on my own, it\u2019s different because we have overlapping but also complementary coalitions.\u201dIn other words, she is thinking about the political coalition of Mr. Sanders, the runner-up in the last two open Democratic presidential primaries \u2014 and how it might intersect with her own.Mr. Sanders had advantages that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez does not. His 2016 run made him a national figure on the left before the right took to attacking him. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been a boogeywoman for Republicans almost since her arrival on the scene in 2018, and she would be the Democratic Party\u2019s most progressive standard-bearer in decades, if not ever.ImageMany on the left see Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as a natural successor to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, 85.Credit...Kenny Holston\/The New York TimesIn a recent New York Times\/Siena University poll, her favorable rating among Republicans was less than 1 percent \u2014 with 75 percent rating her unfavorably.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOverall, just 30 percent of likely voters nationally viewed her favorably, with 41 percent holding an unfavorable opinion.Her democratic socialist ally, Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, had a higher favorable rating, 38 percent, and a lower unfavorable rating, 33 percent. (Born in Uganda, Mr. Mamdani is not eligible to serve as president.)Ms. Ocasio-Cortez hailed Mr. Mamdani, 34, as \u201can incredible political talent.\u201d\u201cThere are also major differences between an executive position for a municipal seat and a legislative position,\u201d she said, which regularly sets up \u201cconflict with your peers.\u201d\u201cOf course, obviously, there are\u2026\u201d she paused. \u201cI don\u2019t know why it\u2019s controversial to say that there are headwinds in identity and gender.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMs. Ocasio-Cortez is not just a good fund-raiser. She has raised $32 million from January 2025 to July 2026 \u2014 more than double the sum that any other House incumbent raised in their re-election account other than Speaker Mike Johnson or Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader.She is prideful of her almost exclusive dependence on small donors.\u201cI have a tremendous amount of fear over the corruption of our political system,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s very few people who are financially independent from special interests that are able to advocate directly for the needs of working people.\u201dIn the end, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez landed on the most familiar of lines to describe the driving force behind her 2028 decision.\u201cWhere can I do the most good?\u201dFrom the commentsShane GoldmacherNational politics reporterI spoke with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last week for a story about her plans to campaign in upstate New York. But during the call I found her unusually open about how much she is weighing a potential presidential run. She has said previously that she would decide after the midterm elections. In the interview, she offered some of the most detail to date about why she might run for the White House \u2014 and why she might not.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
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    "ai_headline": "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 2028: \u2018Life Doesn\u2019t Wait for You to Be Ready\u2019",
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