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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is finally sitting at the House Democrats’ cool
kids’ table, as one Democratic staffer put it the other day. After facing years of skepticism and derision inside Congress—lingering resentment over her defenestration of Joe Crowley, her chutzpah to undermine grand matriarch Nancy Pelosi, her support of party primary challengers, the substance of her actual politics, and her stardom—A.O.C. has embarked on a singular ascent. Last week, the chatter surrounding her three-day, five-stop “Fighting
Oligarchy” tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders was that the 83-year-old populist was passing her his torch. Naturally, Sanders was mum and crotchety on the topic with reporters, but the optics were unmistakable, and perception often manifests reality in politics.

In any case, the real juicy discussion over drinks among Democratic staffers and operatives concerns whether she’ll seize the torch—or at least the Senate seat—from Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer or whether she’ll set her sights even higher. Earlier this month, House Democrats were mingling at a happy hour during their annual retreat in Leesburg when they found out Schumer would vote with Republicans to keep the government open, and they immediately started encouraging A.O.C. to primary him in 2028. Rep. Scott Peters, a San Diego centrist, even offered to write her a campaign check, I’m told from a person familiar with
the offer. This wasn’t merely boozy anger directed at Schumer, either. Two weeks later, I’m told by Democrats that many of her colleagues, both progressives and moderates, really want her to do it, despite questions about whether she can appeal to enough New Yorkers outside New York City to win statewide.

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Of course, Ocasio-Cortez has many options. The least likely is a run for New York governor in 2026.
She could also run for president in 2028, or stay in the House and rise through the ranks—or leave politics altogether. People close to her tell me that every one of those options is on the table, but that she has not made any decisions. One close ally says she will do whatever she believes has the most impact. For now, that means she’s going to work vigorously to win back the House in 2026. “The base is fired up, and we have to be able to talk to them,” that person said. Her office
declined to comment for this story. 

Helping Democrats win has not always been A.O.C.’s priority. During her first several years
in office, she used her megaphone to promote ideological purity over Democratic majorities, making plenty of enemies within her own party. Some of that anger stemmed from less-than-fair bitterness over her defeat of Crowley in 2018, but her protests outside then-Speaker Pelosi’s office in her first month on the job didn’t help. Nor did the deployment of an aligned campaign group, Justice Democrats, to run more progressive candidates against her colleagues. Some moderate Democrats said she also
pushed the party left in a way that made reelections difficult for swing-district Dems.

But those days are mostly behind Ocasio-Cortez. While she still has to face the cadre of Crowley loyalists such as Rep. Linda Sanchez, who will never accept her, A.O.C.’s position has grown considerably stronger over the past four months, despite a stinging defeat in a bid to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee—a battle that placed her at odds
with Rep. Gerry Connolly, a septuagenarian battling esophageal cancer, which prompted questions over whether her evolution into a team player was real or not. Indeed, she is continuing to gain the support of her sometimes jealous and egotistical colleagues. One senior Democratic member told me this weekend that she has
“matured,” and that most in the caucus are really starting to appreciate her.

I’m also told that, Connolly challenge notwithstanding, she mostly hasn’t gotten caught up in the House Dems’ latest generational divide. One senior Democratic staffer called her tour with Sanders “productive”; another said it was “helpful.” Democrats, more than ever, are supportive of her star power—Ocasio-Cortez has a natural ease on social media and a virtually peerless ability to channel base voters’
anger—as the party tries to claw its way back to relevance.

A major factor in the party’s tonal shift is A.O.C.’s growing mastery of its inside game.
When the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour made stops in Democrats’ districts, she gave them a heads-up. When she called Rep. Diana DeGette before visiting her Denver district, DeGette told her colleagues that she was pleased with how well A.O.C. handled the situation. During the tour, Ocasio-Cortez also publicly defended her more ideologically moderate colleagues, because they voted against the Republicans’ government funding bill, which her colleagues noticed. “Your senators stood
strong,” she said in Tuscon, referring to Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. In Nevada, she thanked one of the two Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen. Significantly, Ocasio-Cortez is also continuing to contribute to the House Democrats’ campaign arm, the D.C.C.C., which she didn’t do in her first several years in Congress. 

Still, her anti-establishment streak remains. She is
publicly pushing the party to do more, finger-pointing at Schumer and the other Democrats who voted to fund the government without naming them. “We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us, too,” she said at one of the rallies. She believes that Congress and the executive are engaged in a pivotal battle over power, and that Democrats need to do whatever they can to check Trump—and, yes, that includes shutting down the government. At the very least, people want to see Democrats out in
the country, speaking directly to them, even if they have limited options to actually stop Trump before the 2026 midterms.

A.O.C. isn’t the only House Democrat making moves. Rep. Ro Khanna was on
his own tour, which my partner Peter Hamby visited last week. Rep. Greg Casar, the new chair of the Progressive Caucus, held events this past weekend, including in Rep. Chip Roy’s deep-red district. Rep. Adam Smith has lots of views about what the party needs to do, which I
wrote about earlier this year. Rep. Jason Crow got a write-up in The New York Times, which said that “he may just hold the key to his party winning back the House in 2026.”

There’s also California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is trying to present himself as a moderate, despite his liberal record, and attempting to engage in dialogue with MAGA Republicans through his new podcast. Washington Democrats are, for the most part, saying, Go for it, Gavin, you do you, and have few qualms about it. But Newsom does worry some of them, including a California-native House Democratic aide, who told me the country would
never elect a Californian for president these days, and that Newsom would set the party up for failure should he win a presidential primary.

Then there’s Rahm Emanuel—the former ambassador to Japan, Chicago mayor, chief of staff to President Obama, member of Congress, and top advisor to President Bill Clinton. He got a lot of eye-rolling among Dems anxious to move beyond
Clinton-Obama era politics when he told Politico’s Jonathan Martin that he planned to run for president. But despite visiting green rooms and writing op-eds encouraging Democrats to focus on what people care about, like public school performance, he’s not really part of the Washington conversation about who can lead the party. “He’s a giant in his own mind,” one Democratic senator said.

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