Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sets her sights on 2028

Milan. Teamwork has paid off. The star support riders led the charge and kept the spotlight on the issue throughout Donald Trump’s second term. The trailblazer was Zohran Mamdani, whose extraordinary election campaign last year not only saw him crowned mayor of New York but also served to spark a wide-ranging debate on his ideas. Hot on his heels came the ‘grand old man’, Bernie Sanders, the inspiration behind the whole group, providing continuity with the battles of the past. Then the new faces, the rebels, stepped up to the plate – first and foremost Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan – capable of splitting the Democratic Party in two in an attempt to push it further to the left. And now the large group of support riders is parting to let her through – the true leader of the team, the only one who can attempt the feat of taking the Democratic Socialists of America all the way to the White House nomination: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Member of Congress for New York.

With an extensive Sunday interview on the ABC network that has repositioned her politically, and a video that has gone viral on social media, AOC – as she is commonly known – has effectively launched her campaign for the 2028 presidential election. And those who regarded Trump’s entry into the race in 2015 – on the escalator in the lobby of his Manhattan building – as an anomaly now find themselves having to contend with a likely candidate who has chosen to combine her political message with a much more personal one: her decision to freeze her eggs.

The timing of AOC’s two moves says it all; mixing politics and private life was a carefully calculated move. A few hours before going on air on ABC, Ocasio-Cortez posted a video on Instagram announcing that she had started an egg cryopreservation programme and was filmed whilst receiving hormone injections. She added that she would be having more injections shortly afterwards backstage at ABC, “because women can do anything”. Alexandria is 36 years old; she says she has been thinking about it “for a long time” and has saved up the money to do so.

She then appears on television to be interviewed by Jonathan Karl on the popular programme “This Week”, and after half an hour of discussing politics, the question arises as to why she chose to go public with such a private matter. And Alexandria doesn’t talk about herself, but about Trump: “In this political climate, where this Administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country – from the right to abortion to the ability to carry a pregnancy to term – it’s important that we, as leaders, have these conversations and normalise them, especially for working women.”

With that video of hormone injections, AOC has turned her own body into campaign material for the mid-term elections in November – she is comfortably in the running to retain her seat – and, above all, for the 2028 presidential election. A private, medical procedure that becomes a political message and achieves three results in one fell swoop. The first is to transform an individual reproductive choice into an indictment of the administration’s policies on abortion and assisted reproduction. The second is to position herself as the voice of ‘working women’, for whom she presents herself as a political champion. And finally, the third outcome: AOC has found a way to pre-empt the questions she will be asked during the election campaign, attempting to defuse them. Just imagine a potential 36-year-old female candidate with no children, wholly dedicated to her political career, long-term engaged to a marketing manager, Riley Roberts, with no apparent wedding on the horizon, who enters the fray perhaps against J.D. Vance, a 42-year-old married to his university sweetheart, with whom he has just had his fourth child – conceived, as he himself has said, after the murder of Charlie Kirk, to respond to that death with a new life.

Freezing eggs puts everything on hold for the future; it is a case of ‘not ruling out the possibility’ – the very same response AOC gave when asked whether she would stand for president. But of course, it leaves her open to further questions, particularly on ethical grounds. A potential ‘JD versus AOC’ presidential contest would also be a contest between two Catholic figures, both of whom – for different reasons – are somewhat at odds with the Vatican and with the American Pope, Leo XIV, whose voice could carry considerable weight this time round.

But the ABC interview also served many other purposes, above all to clarify the political stance of a figure who, after eight years in the spotlight, seems to have adopted a new, cautious, almost moderate stance at precisely the moment when the ‘socialist’ brand she has always championed is on the rise. Whilst figures such as Mamdani and El-Sayed appear to be splitting the Democratic Party and plunging it into crisis, Ocasio-Cortez is now presenting herself as a unifying figure. Following the victory in Michigan, she believes the party’s ‘toolbox’ has been expanded ahead of the mid-term elections.

When confronted by Karl, who reminded her of the positions set out in the Democratic Socialists of America’s programme, AOC cautiously distanced herself from the more controversial ideas: defunding the police, abolishing prisons, abolishing the Senate, closing military bases abroad, and public ownership of industries. She even called into question the choices of ‘early wokism’, deeming them excessive. Her priority is a new welfare system, a public health service that is truly public, and labor policies that cater primarily to young people. “We Millennials are no longer kids; we are adults and we are taking the reins,” she proclaimed. Voters seem interested. A poll in New Hampshire – which, as always, will be a decisive state in the 2028 primaries – sees her leading the field of potential Democratic candidates with 22 per cent of the vote, ahead of Pete Buttigieg (21), Mark Kelly (9), Gavin Newsom (8), Bernie Sanders (6) and Kamala Harris (5).

After the November elections, it will become clear whether and how all this will translate into a programme for the White House. Perhaps with the addition of a few ideas on foreign policy, which is currently AOC’s weak point: last February she attended the Munich Security Conference and certainly did not shine in terms of her preparation.

If she enters the race, the more moderate Democrats and the establishment will rush to try to stop her. A bit like the Republicans tried to do in 2015 when Trump entered the fray. We know how that turned out.