Among Democrats on Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wields far more power than New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But the progressive champions have the hearts of Democratic voters across the country.
About three-quarters of Democrats have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of Sanders, while about half have a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez, according to a recent survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Compare them with Schumer, an establishment Democrat, who is viewed favorably by only about a third of Democrats.
Nearly the entire difference in favorability ratings between Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez can be explained by voters who said they don’t know enough to form an opinion of AOC. Their unfavorable ratings among Democrats were essentially the same, around 15% for both.
Ocasio-Cortez, now 35, was an anonymous Sanders campaign volunteer a decade ago. Now she’s perhaps the best positioned to be the 83-year-old Sanders’ successor atop his progressive movement as the Democratic Partytries to position itself in Trump’s America.
But that role comes with risks — President Donald Trump and Republicans have long made AOC a foil, and some Democrats, progressive and moderate alike, have argued she and Sanders are too disruptive and push for unrealistic policy ideas.
Sanders and AOC have long portrayed their political relationship as familial. She used to call him “Tio Bernie,” Spanish for “Uncle Bernie.” He recently held her hand onstage in front of a huge crowd and said, tongue in cheek, “I want to say a word about my daughter.”
A spokesperson for Sanders, Anna Bahr, said Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are “allies, collaborators and friends who built their relationship around a shared vision.”
“In many ways, the congresswoman represents what Bernie has been advocating for decades: When working-class people in this country stand up against the entrenched political elite and fight to fix an economic system propelled by uncontrollable greed, they will win,” Bahr said.
2018: AOC bursts onto the scene
Ocasio-Cortez returned home to the Bronx after graduating from Boston University in 2011. She was a volunteer organizer for Sanders’ 2016 campaign, his first presidential run and one that built a national movement around his vision of democratic socialism, even as he lost to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
When she decided to run for office herself, AOC had virtually no money but was assisted by progressive organizations, among them Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, with ties to veterans of Sanders’ presidential campaign.
Sanders was quick to congratulate his virtually unknown protégé in June 2018 after she defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, a member of the Democratic leadership and potential future speaker, in the primary.
A month later, they campaigned together in Kansas for two progressive House candidates and sat for a joint interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Just two years ago, we were both in St. Mary’s Park in the South Bronx. I was in the crowd with thousands of other people across ages, races, creeds, incomes. And to be here two years later pushing that revolution in Kansas is pretty amazing,” Ocasio-Cortez said during their joint Kansas appearance.
2019: AOC endorses Sanders over Warren
Ocasio-Cortez began her congressional career in 2019 by introducing the Green New Deal. The ambitious proposal called for transforming the U.S. economy by eliminating fossil fuels while creating national health care coverage and job guarantees, as well as high-quality education and affordable housing. It has been criticized by Republicans and many Democrats for its cost and the potential disruption that would be caused by a restructuring of the economy.
It was only a nonbinding resolution, but the Green New Deal became a major issue in the 2020 Democratic primary and a lightning rod for criticism on the right, further cementing Ocasio-Cortez as a power player in Democratic politics.
By late 2019, Sanders was struggling in his second White House campaign. Much of the Democratic field — notably Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — had co-opted pieces of his agenda and split the progressive coalition.
Then, Sanders suffered an untimely heart attack while campaigning in Las Vegas. He needed a boost, and it came from Ocasio-Cortez.
She bestowed her endorsement during a rally at a park in her congressional district. She later campaigned with him in the crucial early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and she seconded his nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
As the Sanders presidential campaign floundered, Ocasio-Cortez was conflicted about whether to endorse him, according to a book published years later. Just months into her first term in Congress and already one of the best-known members of the House, she was still uncomfortable speaking to crowds and still feeling out how to build and wield her influence, aides told the authors of “The Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party.” The book was published last year and excerpted in Vanity Fair magazine.
Corbin Trent, her first communications director in the House, threatened to quit when Ocasio-Cortez floated delaying the rally, according to the book. He told the authors he remembered a “big argument” about the episode. Even as she campaigned for Sanders, she worried she’d be outshined and her star power would evaporate as quickly as it arrived.
2023-24: Campaigning for Biden and then Harris
After Sanders lost the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, they continued occasional joint appearances, campaigning for progressive candidates or discussing topics such as the early response to COVID-19, union activism and climate change. As the 2024 election approached, they campaigned together for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee who replaced Biden after his debate performance.
2025: The ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour
Trump’s return to the White House left Democrats dejected and searching for a way forward. Sanders answered with a series of rallies he called his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, an attempt to push the rebuilding party to lead the working class in existential struggle against wealthy elites.
After a few solo rallies, he invited AOC to come along.
She introduced him, as she had years prior, as the inspiration for her own political career. But she added more depth.
“I know that one of the things that inspired me to run for office for the first time is that when I saw Sen. Sanders on television, and I was wiping tables down and saw the TV on and saying, every person in this country deserves health care as a human right,” she told a crowd in Tempe, Arizona, in March. “And I know it made me feel almost for the first time that this isn’t something that we should earn. This is something that should be afforded to all of us because we are human. I just want to thank him, and so let’s give him the most earthshaking round of applause.”
Sanders has resisted talking publicly of naming a successor while noting that he will not run for president again in 2028, when he turns 87. But holding her hand in Salt Lake City last month, he told a roaring crowd that he considered AOC to be family.
“Now I want to say a word about my daughter. I want to say a word about Alexandria and why what she’s doing is so important,” he said. “Six years ago, what were you doing for a living? She was a waitress. But she looked around her and she saw a society that was fundamentally unjust and in many ways ugly to the people in the community in which she lived in New York City. She stood up and took on one of the most powerful people in the House of Representatives.”
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