AOC Wallops Schumer in Potential 2028 NY Senate Primary, Poll Finds

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., would trounce Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a hypothetical 2028 Democratic Party Senate primary, according to a poll conducted by Data for Progress, a self-described “progressive” think tank. 

The left-wing group surveyed 767 likely primary voters in such a New York Democrat Senate primary contest from March 26 to March 31. 

The poll showed the New York congresswoman leading the longtime Democrat senator by a whopping 19 points. AOC—as Ocasio-Cortez is popularly known—drew 55% support in a hypothetical 2028 Senate primary, compared with Schumer’s 36%. The remaining 9% of respondents were unsure. 

Schumer also garnered the lowest favorability rating of all the Democrat politicians tested, with just 29% viewing him with a very favorable opinion. By contrast, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., marshaled the most favorable rating, with 57% of poll respondents having a very favorable opinion of him, while 50% of those polled had a very favorable opinion of Ocasio-Cortez. 

Schumer was heavily criticized by many fellow Democrats after he voted in mid-March in support of the Republican-backed budgetary continuing resolution that kept the federal government from shutting down. 

“I knew it was a difficult choice, and I knew I’d get a lot of criticism for my choice. But I felt, as a leader, I had to do it,” Schumer said on ABC’s “The View” about voting to keep the government open. The New York senator expressed reservations about of letting President Donald Trump decide what parts of the federal government were essential or not had the government shut down.

Schumer was joined by nine other members of his party in the Senate on that vote. 

Ocasio-Cortez criticized the Senate Democrat leader’s decision, telling the press, “I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal.” 

She described Schumer as essentially bowing down to tech magnate and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk.

“Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think, is a huge slap in the face. And I think there is a wide sense of betrayal if things proceed as currently planned,” Ocasio-Cortez said. 

While Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitions remain formally unclear, it’s worth noting that Schumer himself was elevated from the lower chamber to the upper chamber of Congress. Schumer represented New York in the House of Representatives from 1981 till 1999, when he became a senator from the Empire State. He has been the leader of the Senate Democrats since 2017.

At 74, Schumer remains relatively young for a profession that has seen members serving even into their late eighties or early nineties. By those standards, Ocasio-Cortez, who is just 35, has decades to ascend up the congressional hierarchy even without displacing Schumer. 

In general, Democrat primary voters appear broadly unhappy with how their party has handled the return to power of the Trump administration. Some 84% of the voters surveyed said Democrats in Washington were “not doing enough to stand up to Trump and the MAGA movement.”

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