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election 2028
AOC Calls Out Cornell and 'Culture of Rape' as Prosecutors Reopen Campus Assault Case
The congresswoman spoke in Ithaca, New York and other cities ahead of a possible 2028 US Senate run.
Sep 28, 2026
As national outrage grew over an alleged rape of a former Cornell University student by seven members of a fraternity in 2024, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday condemned a culture in which students accused of sexual assault are "protected" while survivors like the woman in the Cornell case, identified as Jane Doe, are often forced out of their campus communities.
The progressive New York Democrat spoke at a town hall in Ithaca, which has been rocked in recent weeks by the news that Doe filed a lawsuit against the school and several campus organizations and individuals over the alleged crime.
Ocasio-Cortez is visiting several cities across New York State this week, kicking off a voter outreach effort and meeting local officials ahead of a possible 2028 US Senate run. She has also been named as a potential presidential candidate. The event she spoke at Sunday was hosted by More Perfect University and titled "Students vs. Billionaires," but Ocasio-Cortez began by speaking about the case, which prosecutors on Monday said they were reopening after learning of new evidence.
"The fact that Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education—because you can't stay in school when something like that happens to you... the fact that she had to lose her education and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward—never again," said Ocasio-Cortez. "Never again."
.@AOC calls out Cornell University and shares her message to sexual assault survivors:
“The fact that Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education… and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League Education — never again.” pic.twitter.com/rViWgbdUm0
— More Perfect University (@MPUniversityUS) September 27, 2026
The Cornell case centers around an incident that allegedly took place in October 2024 at the Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, according to the plaintiff's lawsuit.
The student was visiting a friend at the house and was intoxicated when two male students coerced her into snorting a substance that they said was ketamine, the lawsuit says. She was then sexually assaulted, and one of the men subsequently sent a message in the fraternity's group chat on Snapchat inviting other members to assault the victim.
Doe's attorney, Thomas Giuffra, has said that two of the seven men named in the lawsuit were expelled from the school, while others were temporarily suspended or required to attend workshops or write essays.
Giuffra has also said that the Cornell Police Department did not follow up with Doe after her initial report, and that she was never contacted by a "specially trained detective or district attorney" regarding her allegations.
“In my experience, speaking with an abuse survivor requires delicacy, understanding, and specialized training," Giuffra told ABC News. "An average university police officer would not have these skills."
Matthew Van Houten, the district attorney for Tompkins County, New York, told ABC News Monday that his office was reopening an investigation into the case and considering whether to bring criminal charges. He told the outlet that the details of the assault in the lawsuit were "dramatically different” from the plaintiff's statement to police in 2024, when his office relied on the Cornell Police Department's investigation.
Two of the men accused in the lawsuit denied to ABC that they had committed sexual assault.
In 2024, Van Houten said, the victim did not allege that she was drugged or that she didn't consent to sexual activities. He also said his office had not been not provided with a screenshot of the Snapchat messages.
Giuffra suggested the university authorities had not passed the evidence along to the DA's office for its review of the investigation.
“My client went to the Cornell University Police because a crime was committed," Giuffra told ABC News. "It was the obligation of the police to investigate the complaints. They were given the group chat inviting the members of the fraternity to rape my client. This was a critical piece of evidence supporting that a crime had occurred. Despite this there was no follow-up with Ms. Doe either by the Cornell Police or the Tompkins County district attorney."
Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday that the fact that the students "posted in a group chat... means it was normal to them. That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture, this is norms, these are practices. And what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore. We cannot."
After the lawsuit was filed on September 14, student journalists at the Cornell Daily Sun expressed outrage at the university's failure to publicly release information from a Title IX investigation Cornell officials opened regarding the alleged rape, which resulted in the expulsions and lesser punishments of the men accused of the attack.
"Safety is not adjacent to the educational mission—safety is, in fact, its precondition," wrote the editors of the student-run newspaper. "Cornell has said as much, in the document that governs the student conduct, which announces that it is 'intended to preserve a higher education community and residential campus where ‘any person’ in the community can pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment.'"
"So we ask the questions the university has left unanswered," continued the editors. "If Cornell follows the law, then we should have access to a public deposition issued from the school, the Title IX investigation opened in January 2025, and how it concluded. Why were these men allowed to 'pursue their education in a secure and nourishing environment' and she was not? Why was she not informed of the outcome of her own Title IX investigation? Who benefited from the 23 months of elapsed time when the public knew nothing?"
The editorial named the seven men accused in the plaintiff's lawsuit, writing, "We know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this university's concealment."
Cornell on Monday released a statement saying it supported the Tompkins County DA's decision to reopen an investigation into the case, and rejecting claims that officials had not properly sanctioned the men named in the lawsuit.
In Ithaca, Ocasio-Cortez said that "a lot of work" needs to be done at the federal level to protect college students from assaults on campuses.
"The culture of rape," said the congresswoman, "is protected in elite institutions across the United States, including Cornell University... This entire country is sick and tired of not just financially corrupt, but morally corrupt leadership."
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Weighing 2028 White House Run, AOC Says Stakes of Race Would Be ‘All or Nothing’
"Life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things," the Democratic congresswoman said amid nationwide progressive political momentum. "Sometimes life just makes things ready for you."
Sep 22, 2026
As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighs whether to run for president in 2028, there are numerous factors that complicate her decision: her identity as a Latina woman, her role as a leader in a progressive movement on the verge of unprecedented power, and her considerations about raising a family in the future.
Whatever decision the 36-year-old Democratic congresswoman makes, however, it will be “all or nothing,” she said in an interview published Tuesday by The New York Times, in which she spoke candidly about the stakes of what would be a historic and potentially transformative bid for the nation’s highest office.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 2018 in a victory over the Democratic Party establishment that became a model for the wave of progressive momentum that has defined this year’s cycle.
Amid what she described as the “ascendance” of her movement—marked by the insurgent victories of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed over opponents with establishment support and big money behind them—Ocasio-Cortez is now wondering aloud whether her own moment has arrived.
“There’s an argument that some make that this is a very unique political window and, oftentimes in politics, you do only get one shot,” she said. “And you don’t—and just in life in general—life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things. Sometimes life just makes things ready for you.”
But she is well aware of the obstacles and sacrifices, both personal and political. Having recently opened up publicly about receiving fertility treatments, she wondered aloud what a potential candidacy might mean for her life, including a possible future pregnancy.
She is also well aware that she would be up against the weight of very recent history. Two of the last three Democratic candidates for president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris, were women, and they both lost to President Donald Trump after campaigns in which sexism—and, in Harris’ case, racism—featured prominently in attacks against them.
“Pretty candidly, I think about my identity," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I’m not naïve 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’s a lot of conversation about electability, and I don’t kind of shy away from those realities.”
Those realities are indeed hard to ignore, especially in contrast to her mentor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who ran two formidable Democratic primary campaigns for president in 2016 and 2020 and with whom Ocasio-Cortez embarked on a wildly successful "Fight Oligarchy" rally tour last year, speaking to large crowds in both red and blue districts.
Though they have long campaigned together and advance a platform centered on the same signature policies of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a tax on billionaire wealth, Sanders consistently ranks among the most well-liked politicians in office, while a New York Times/Siena poll this month showed AOC with just 30% favorability, compared with 41% unfavorability among likely voters.
There are other paths in front of AOC that could put her on a more traditional long-term trajectory to the White House, which has never in modern history been occupied by a president who ascended straight from the US House.
She also said she was considering a primary bid against the Democratic Party's current Senate leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), whom many Democratic voters have come to see as the embodiment of all that is sclerotic and unchanging about their party's entrenched elite.
At a time when backing from corporations and other powerful special interests plays an unprecedented role in achieving political power, Ocasio-Cortez emphasized her near-exclusive backing from small donors, which she said makes her one of "very few people who are financially independent from special interests that are able to advocate directly for the needs of working people.”
Regardless of the decision she makes, she recognizes the enormous stakes.
“It’s very all or nothing,” she said. “If I were to run in this cycle, and not win, I would be done.”
“And I am not opposed to that,” she added. “That, in and of itself, does not exclude the decision... But it has to make it worth it.”
Ocasio-Cortez has previously emphasized that her "ambitions" have less to do with achieving the highest possible seat for herself than with helping her movement succeed.
“My ambition is to change this country,” she said during a forum in May. “Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever, a living wage is forever, workers’ rights are forever, women’s rights, all of that.”
She told the Times that the question that will ultimately determine her path forward is: "Where can I do the most good?”
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'Proven Leaders and Voices of Clarity': Progressives Urge Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna to Enter 2028 Presidential Race
"AOC and Khanna... have shown a willingness to blaze unusual and much-needed trails on Capitol Hill beyond the constraints of the Democratic Party establishment and bipartisan corporatism."
Sep 14, 2026
Two progressive advocacy organizations Monday called on Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to enter the 2028 presidential race, singling them out as "proven leaders and voices of clarity."
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and RootsAction announced an initiative aimed at lobbying the two congressional progressives to put their hats in the ring for the presidency, arguing they offer a much-needed alternative to establishment Democrats too eager to do the bidding of corporate interests.
"Most of the Democrats whose names now crowd the field have been war enablers, go-slow reformers or status quo protectors," the groups wrote. "AOC and Khanna, meanwhile, have shown a willingness to blaze unusual and much-needed trails on Capitol Hill beyond the constraints of the Democratic Party establishment and bipartisan corporatism."
The groups cited polls showing that "majorities of voters, not just Democrats, are angry about nonstop war, runaway inflation, corporate greed and a government dominated by billionaires," and argued that Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez were needed in the race so that voters would "hear serious solutions" the country's most pressing problems.
"Without a progressive populist advocate atop the ticket, the Democratic response would be woefully underwhelming," the groups warned, "enabling right-wing demagoguery to push voter unrest in dangerous and divisive directions."
The campaign to get Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez into the race will begin immediately after the midterm elections in November, the groups said.
The two groups also touted their past work influencing Democratic politics, as PDA pushed for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to launch a presidential bid as far back as 2013, while RootsAction was the first national group to endorse New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's insurgent 2025 campaign.
Alan Minsky, executive director of PDA, noted that most prospective 2028 Democratic candidates at the moment are "Big Money-backed status quo centrists," despite the fact that "the success of progressive candidates across the country was the story of the 2026 primary season."
"We need at least one progressive champion on the presidential debate stage to counter the corporatists’ cacophony of bland incrementalism," Minsky empghasized. "Americans want change."
Minsky's sentiment was echoed by India Walton, senior strategist at RootsAction.
"Working people are hungry for leadership that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected," said Walton, "leaders who do not capitulate to corporate power, who reject endless wars, and embrace policies that mean we can live healthy, happy lives. AOC and Ro Khanna can bring that vision to the presidential stage."
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Elevating Data Center Activism for the 2028 Election
To fight back against Big Tech, the movement must articulate a clear diagnosis of the problem, adapt to changing political landscapes, translate early wins into lasting policy, and forge broad alliances.
Sep 13, 2026
As data centers sprout across the nation, a new movement is emerging to challenge the tech companies building them. The rapid spread of these facilities raises critical environmental, health, economic, and political questions, positioning health, climate, and social justice activists to play a central role in elevating these questions for the 2028 elections.
To date, the movement against data centers has made impressive gains. In the first four months of 2026, local opposition disrupted at least 75 data center projects worth approximately $130 billion. In June 2026, more than 200 advocacy organizations urged Congress to reject legislation fast-tracking the financing and permitting for large AI data centers. By July, New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul imposed a statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers—a model other states and cities are considering. National groups such as Food and Water Watch, the NAACP, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Democratic Socialists of America have distributed resources to support local campaigns.
Public opposition has shifted dramatically alongside this activism. In August 2025, a poll of 4,000 Americans showed 43% supported having a data center built near their home. Just eight months later, in Spring 2026, support plummeted to 21%—a drop described by the pollster as “a scale of change in public opinion that I didn’t know was still possible in the US.”
However, the movement also faces significant headwinds. Big tech companies like Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Open AI are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to support new data centers to meet AI’s growing computing demands. As Karen Hao explains in Empire of AI, tech owners believe being first and largest will ensure dominance, driving relentless expansion.
Data center and AI activists are raising core questions: Who should decide whether communities allow data centers? Who pays the long-term costs and reaps the benefits?
Earlier environmental movements received some support from presidents seeking environmental legacies, but President Donald Trump provided public subsidies enabling the AI industry to bypass opponents.
Despite widespread local opposition to data centers and bipartisan support for regulation, the movement lacks a comprehensive national narrative to counteract the industry claim that AI will solve all problems. To tell such a story, previous and current movements must articulate a clear diagnosis of the problem, adapt to changing political landscapes, translate early wins into lasting policy, and forge broad alliances. My analysis of past successes of health and environmental movements suggests five strategic pathways emerge for the data center movement.
Connect Concerns About Data Centers to Other Issues People Care About
Successful movements link distinct problems to create multiple paths into activism. The women’s movement brought together advocates for sexual and reproductive healthcare, women of color, working women, lesbians, and people with disabilities. This inclusive alliance built the power needed to expand access to abortion, ban pregnancy discrimination, and protect women from insurance industry bias. Even when differences among its supporters emerged, the movement’s unifying goals provided a framework for common action.
Data center activists have raised health, environmental, and social justice concerns: increasing air pollution, water depletion, and excess noise. One study estimates that by 2028, the annual public health costs of data center air pollution will reach $20 billion. Activists also recognize that data center expansion enables AI and tech companies to deepen surveillance, target harmful social media campaigns, and facilitate harms to mental health.
Organizers can build a unified constituency by addressing both immediate harms (unregulated construction) and systemic issues (AI expansion enriching billionaires at public expense).
Build Crosscutting Coalitions
Effective movements united diverse groups around shared economic and social interests. The Fight for $15 movement successfully raised the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, in at least 68 cities, counties, and states, winning more than $150 billion in higher pay for more than 26 million workers. It united low-wage workers, unions with the resources to pay organizers, and activists from Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.
Data centers activists can replicate this coalition approach. They can link residents concerned about the impact of local data centers and workers and labor unions whose jobs will be displaced by the growth of AI. They can enlist advocates for democracy, social justice, and tax reform who object to the political influence and low taxes of tech billionaires.
Pursue Transitional and Transformative Goals
Movements frequently debate whether to emphasize immediate or long-term goals. In the movement for universal healthcare, organizers argued whether to support the Affordable Care Act as a step forward or to demand Medicare for All to reduce healthcare industry power.
Mark Hannay, from Metro New York Health Care for All, suggested a “both-and framework.” Metro fought for Medicare for All, but also for funding for New York City’s public hospitals and Medicaid and stronger regulation of the healthcare industry.
Data center and AI activists adopt this approach by pairing immediate demands—such as construction moratoria and stronger air and water protections—with long-term systemic reforms, including antitrust enforcement, elimination of corporate subsidies, and higher taxes on tech billionaires.
Use Multiple Strategies to Achieve Policy Goals
ACT UP, a leading force in the fight to get the government to respond more effectively and rapidly to the AIDS epidemic, used inside-outside, disruptive and conventional, and litigation and community organizing to achieve its goals. ACT UP found that multiple approaches increased pressure on the government to respond and mobilized more constituencies.
The data center movement has already used community organizing, demonstrations, litigation, legislation, and media campaigns to advance its goals. Maintaining this diversity, aligning its deployment to maximize impact, and developing a strategic plan for 2028 and beyond will help sustain momentum and drive policy wins.
Articulate a Vision
Enduring movements unite people around a vision grounded in shared values. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a world where character triumphed over skin color provide a moral vision for the civil rights movement. For more than a decade, environmental justice activists have proposed that all people have the right to environmental protections and a voice in shaping their communities’ environments. This expansive vision has enabled this movement to win local, state, and national policy changes and bring together environmental, climate, people of color, and women’s activists across the country.
Data center and AI activists are raising core questions: Who should decide whether communities allow data centers? Who pays the long-term costs and reaps the benefits? What role should voters—rather than tech industry executives—have in directing the future of AI?
By offering clear, practical answers and using the experiences of past activist campaigns, the growing data center-AI movement can put these questions on the nation’s electoral and political agenda. In doing so, they can become a powerful force for healthier, safer, and more just communities and a world where AI is used to benefit humanity.
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Can Democrats Take Advantage of How Much Everyone Hates Trump's Iran War?
If there’s been a better opportunity in the entire post-World War II era to chart a course away from our permanent war footing, I can’t think of it.
Aug 26, 2026
Amidst the tragifarce of President Donald Trump’s apparently off-the-top-of-his-head war on Iran may lie a silver lining for the 2028 presidential election—a silver lining that comes with two big ifs. One, of course, is the if that goes with everything involved with the race: If there is a fair election. The if specific to the hoped-for silver lining is if there is a candidate willing and able to make use of it.
Ever since Gallup started public opinion polls, when it has come to questions of war, they’ve shown the American public favoring every one at the start—until now, with Donald Trump launching the first war to encounter immediate objection from a majority of the American public. A man who exults in doing things that no president has ever done before has certainly done it up proud with this one—ending a more than 85-year stretch when the American people gave the government the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of every military action, no matter how much they may have come to regret it later.
War. What Is It Good For?
Not surprisingly, the Second World War—the first one ever polled—enjoyed the broadest support, with 97% backing the declaration of war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And all these years later, World War II is still widely thought of as the “good war.” Not so much with the war that was the next most broadly supported at the outset—the Afghanistan War then enjoyed 92% support from a population that could never have imagined it dragging on for two decades. Eighty-two percent supported the first George Bush’s Iraq War, now remembered as the Gulf War. And even though Americans would eventually turn against all three of them, the (Second) Iraq War, Korean War, and Vietnam War started out with76%, 75%, and 65% support respectively. (Public polling only on the Vietnam War began in 1965, as America started coming to grips with the fact that we were actually in a war there.)
Much less remembered conflicts that also found initial approval included Bush's 1989 Panama invasion, with 82%favorable; Clinton’s 1999 Kosovo War bombing of Yugoslavia, at 58 percent; and 53 percent for Reagan’s 1983 invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada. In fact, the only American military operation not enjoying majority support from the start was Obama’s 2011 bombing of Libya, favored by only 47 percent. But even then, only 37 percent outright opposed it—You others perhaps not even considering us to be at war (a stance that the Administration would subsequently adopt in arguing that it did not qualify as war under the War Powers Act.)
So far as Trump’s current Iran War, Gallup encountered only 34 percent immediate support. This then, would seem to qualify as what political scientists might call, “a really big deal.” Despite a solid history of uniting behind the flag first and asking questions later, the American people have decided to believe their own eyes, seeing a president aid and abet the Israeli assassination a foreign head of state; bomb a population half a world away, threatening that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again;" and deploy the American military seemingly at whim, with little apparent concern as to cause or effect—all this in a war that he has several times claimed to have already won. In short, for the first time in living memory, the American people have concluded that a Commander-in-Chief—and his Department of War—has betrayed their trust. If there’s been a better opportunity in the entire post-World War II era to chart a course away from our permanent war footing, I can’t think of it. That is, if we can find the right candidate.
The Right Candidate?
We can probably safely assume that all 2028 Democratic presidential candidates will have opposed the Iran War and will in some sense claim title to any “silver lining” that may come with public rejection of that war. Not all, however, will be able to credibly argue that they offer the prospect of any real change in this arena, should they become president. After all, opposing a war entered into by “the other party’s” president may not be the norm, but it is common enough; opposing “your own party’s” president’s war is, however, quite another thing. That type of opposition, which would seem reasonable evidence of intent to buck the everlasting-war trend, is virtually non-existent among Republicans and rare among Democrats. For the latter, their foreign policy stances during the Biden Administration would logically seem more telling as to how they might operate in the White House.
The obvious touchstone in this realm is Israel’s Gaza War, continuous through both Biden and Trump Administrations. The questions for many Democratic primary voters will probably run along the lines of: “When did you recognize that the Israeli response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attrocity—1,200 Israelis killed, 250 hostages—had become a campaign of destruction of just the sort that Trump threatened Iran with? And what did you do when you came to that realization—assuming you ever did?”
From that vantage point, the field currently in the 2028 presidential discussion mix seems to run the full gamut of plausibly in regard to taking advantage of any Iran War “silver lining.” On the less plausible end, we have Kamala Harris. The most recent Democratic nominee, now said to be considering another run, comes with a Biden Administration record that seems to offer scant ground to argue that a vote for her would be a vote for a significant foreign policy shift: As Vice President she supported arming the Israeli military through the end of her term, as the estimated Palestinian death toll reached 48,000 (out of a current total of 74,000), with the overwhelming majority being civilian, and a substantial portion children.
At the other end, we have Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who says she hasn’t ruled out a presidential run. By late October, 2023, with the Palestinian death toll already at 7,000, Ocasio-Cortez was one of only nine House Democrats both sponsoring an immediate cease fire resolution and voting against support of continued Israeli military action. At the moment, the only other currently chatted-about potential candidate to stake out a firm anti-Gaza War position that dates back to the Democratic Biden administration is Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
While these wars, and foreign policy in general, may not command center stage in the next presidential election, it’s been generally recognized that—Pete Hegseth notwithstanding—one facet of Trump’s appeal to some has been the belief that he was less committed to continual overseas wars than his recent predecessors—of both parties. While he arguably was no worse than they during his first term, his Iran War has shattered any illusion of that—both for him and the Republican Party that has backed him all the way. The challenge will be to produce a Democratic nominee who can credibly appeal to the antiwar sentiment within the Trump electorate. Although we are in no position to say exactly how the presidential primary field will ultimately shake out, the current snapshot does give us a sense of the hard reckoning we will have make as to which candidate would actually pursue altering our course of continuous conflict and spiraling military expenditure.
Just a Small Part
Foreign wars are, of course, neither the only, nor even the principal cause of Donald Trump’s disapproval ratings now running over 60 percent. So, given that no prominent Republican has bucked Trump in any significant way during his second Administration – and politically survived to talk about it—any imaginable 2028 Republican presidential candidate will likely have plenty of unpopular positions to talk their way around. All of which may eventually make it conventional wisdom that the race for the White House is the Democrats’ to lose—again if we assume a fair election.
But these foreign policy questions do provide an early, clear example of the type of choices that lie in front of us. More broadly, will the next Democratic presidential campaign be largely confined to—rightly—attacking the Republican Party for its support of a corrupt and stupid administration, on the assumption that simply being not-Trump will be good enough? Or will it attempt to deliver a candidate capable of credibly addressing the growing economic inequality, the unaffordabilty of healthcare, the concentration of corporate power, and the host of other issues closer to home that have sent a significant part of the American working class looking for love in all the wrong places?
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In First 6 Democratic Primary States for 2028, Overwhelming Majorities Demand Weapons Embargo on Israel
"Across the first six states set to vote in the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, virtually no likely Democratic voters say Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza," noted Drop Site News.
Aug 25, 2026
When the Democratic National Committee selected South Carolina this month as the "first in the nation" state for the 2028 presidential primaries, political journalists and commentators suggested the calendar could give the southern state's moderate voter base a new level of influence in selecting the party's candidate.
But new polling from the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and YouGov on Tuesday showed that on an issue the party and media establishment continue to dismiss as "extreme," overwhelming majorities of voters in the first states that will hold primaries in 2028 agree: The party must elect a presidential candidate who supports ending military aid to Israel.
The IMEU Policy Project and YouGov surveyed 4,000 likely Democratic primary voters across the six states that will vote first in 2028—South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia—and found an undeniable trend.
"Democrats in the first six states to vote in the 2028 presidential primary overwhelmingly demand sanctions and a total weapons embargo against Israel," said the IMEU Policy Project.
South Carolina and Virginia, which have typically favored more moderate candidates, showed somewhat less support for a weapons embargo on Israel, which, with US backing, has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza over the past three years and continues to attack the largely decimated exclave despite a ceasefire deal.
But even the two southern states showed strong support for a dramatic shift in the United States' relationship with Israel, which it provides with nearly $4 billion in military aid annually, in addition to at least $16.3 billion in direct military assistance since it began attacking Gaza in 2023.
Nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters in both South Carolina and Virginia said they would prefer a 2028 presidential candidate who supports cutting off weapons to Israel. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the former state said they believed Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, as well as 72% of Virginians.
Drop Site News noted that across the six states, regarding the genocide question, "the 'no' response never rises about 5%."
Prem Thakker of Zeteo News emphasized that the polling was released as "the party was hoping South Carolina would be the moderate saving grace" in the 2028 presidential election, in which a large field of candidates is expected to run.
Potential contenders include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a progressive who's committed to opposing all military aid for Israel; former Vice President Kamala Harris, who refused to commit to an arms embargo during her unsuccessful 2024 campaign; California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said in May that the US should reconsider weapons aid to Israel; and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said he would support a weapons embargo last year only after facing backlash over comments in which he called the issue "complicated."
Buttigieg visited South Carolina over the weekend, as have several other possible candidates, including Newsom and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a top recipient of donations from the pro-Israel lobby.
The other states polled by IMEU and YouGov also showed high levels of support for cutting off weapons to Israel and sanctioning its right-wing government, which faces elections in October.
Seventy-eight percent of Nevada voters said they view Israel's US-backed bombardment of Gaza as a genocide, and 74% said the US should end weapons aid.
Three-quarters of voters in New Hampshire, Michigan, and New Mexico said the US should stop providing Israel with weapons. Michigan was home to the largest share of voters who viewed the attacks on Gaza as a genocide—80%—and in both New Hampshire and New Mexico, 70% of voters said the US should sanction Israel.
Left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, whom centrist Democrats, think tanks, and commentators have attacked in recent months for his past comments on September 11 and Hamas, and whom critics have said should be shunned by progressive political campaigns, said the new polling illustrated an inescapable reality for the Democratic Party.
"This is why I said the '28 Democratic nominee will not be pro-Israel," said Piker of the new survey. "Even if I go away, this problem doesn’t."
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'Too Bad for Them': AOC Responds to Right-Wing 'Freak-out' Over Decision to Freeze Her Eggs
"I go after what I want, but maybe that’s what they don’t like," said the congresswoman.
Aug 14, 2026
It's been five days since US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a potential 2028 presidential contender, went public with her decision to freeze her eggs.
But the response from right-wing influencers and operatives has already given her an opportunity to turn the discussion of her fertility into one that addresses Republican policies driving the affordability crisis, questions how committed the right really is to "freedom," and points out conservatives' hypocrisy when they urge women to "have babies younger"—while applying little of the same pressure to young men.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced her decision to freeze her eggs last Sunday with the first in a series of Instagram videos in which her nearly 10 million followers have been able to follow along as she injects hormones and attends ultrasound appointments in preparation for the procedure—all while appearing on news programs to discuss foreign and domestic policy and talking to her followers about the side effects as well as the cost of fertility preservation treatment.
"I want you all to see that, because women can do anything,” Ocasio-Cortez, often known as AOC, told her followers. “And I think it’s badass that I’m going to be, you know, giving myself shots in the greenroom, get my glam on, roll out, talk about international events, domestic policy, elections, pop out, live my life, do my thing.”
Right-wing commentators who have bemoaned low birth rates and attacked liberal women for buying "into the feminist lie and spend[ing] their childbearing years climbing the career ladder," as podcaster Katie Miller said, immediately pounced on AOC's decision.
Allie Beth Stuckey, a popular right-wing podcaster and author of the books Toxic Empathy and You're Not Enough (And That's Okay), the latter of which warned against "the toxic culture of self-love," responded to the 36-year-old progressive congresswoman's videos with a list of reasons she should have already had children. She accused AOC of being "selfish and irresponsible" for potentially becoming a mother after 40 and said she was "glamorizing the lie that women can have it all."
Miller, the wife of President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, allowed that "we should celebrate" a woman's efforts to have children in the future, but said that “more women should get married and have babies younger," while a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, the right-wing group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, said AOC's fertility decisions were a "cautionary tale" for women.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is said to have considerable influence in the White House, announced that AOC had "failed as a woman" and had “wasted her entire 30s living with a man pretending to be engaged when she could have gotten married and had a baby." (It was reported this week that AOC's long-term relationship had ended.)
Some conservatives questioned whether attacking the popular, social media-savvy lawmaker over her desire to have children was a wise move for the MAGA movement, with one former Office of the Director of National Intelligence official, Alexa Henning, telling The Times in the UK that "dunking on AOC for freezing her eggs is not a winning message with women voters."
On Thursday evening, Ocasio-Cortez suggested Henning was right to be concerned, as she posted her latest Instagram video on the topic.
She said she has found "the freak-out" around her egg-freezing process to be "pretty funny," because "my choice is a threat to them."
"Despite the rhetoric they use and the bald eagles that they plaster all over the place, they actually really do not believe in a free country," said AOC. "Very aggressively do not believe in a free country, because they attack everyone who exercises their freedom to choose all sorts of lives... They attack those who choose the life that they don't lead or a life that they don't approve of."
"And people say you’re peddling this 'dangerous lie that women can have it all.' You know, maybe in life you can’t have everything, but here’s the secret: You can have a hell of a lot. And I am very grateful for my life. I go after what I want, but maybe that’s what they don’t like either," she continued, before shrugging: "Too bad for them."
AOC: I also find the freakout around it pretty funny as well. I’m not gonna lie. A commentator that was like, “What she’s doing is peddling the dangerous lie that women can have it all.” Can you believe that?
What I find funny is that my choice is a threat to them. Despite the… pic.twitter.com/rwpPL8YH0F
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 14, 2026
She emphasized that the procedure "is not a guarantee" that she'll be able to use the eggs to have children later in life, but said the process had relieved "a certain amount of anxiety or stress that can come with feeling like you are in a race against biology that men simply don't have to engage in."
She then took aim at commentators like Stuckey and Miller for directing their pronatalist pressure campaigns disproportionately at young women.
"In straight relationships, who are you supposed to be having babies with?" said AOC. "They aren't pressuring men to be ready to have a baby young, as the way that they are pressuring women to have a baby when they're young."
AOC: For all of these right-wing people who are harping about women having to and needing to have families at a young age—and again, if that’s your choice, that’s amazing—but they are doing nothing to make sure that men in their culture respect and value women.
In fact, many of… pic.twitter.com/ox70tJzth1
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 14, 2026
The congresswoman then suggested that while Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow and now the CEO of Turning Point USA, recently told a crowd of young college graduates to "have more kids than you can afford," financial concerns may play a role in falling birthrates and delayed parenthood. Housing unaffordability has soared to record highs in recent years, while Trump's tariff policies and war in Iran have contributed to rising costs for groceries, gas, and other essentials. Republicans have also attacked government healthcare programs including Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies, and about a third of Americans reported cutting back on spending in order to afford healthcare last year.
"The basics are more expensive than they've ever been," said Ocasio-Cortez. "For a lot of people, we would have kids at a much younger age if the conditions were right, if women got paid equally, and if people in general were paid enough and things were affordable enough that you feel like you could comfortably provide for a child."
With her series of videos, said Amanda Litman, executive director of the political action committee Run for Something, AOC had opened up "a larger conversation on women, ambition, family, gender politics, and so much more."
Journalist Zaid Jilani suggested right-wing commentators had fallen into a trap: "Intentionally or unintentionally she got the Republicans to act really weird."
The response from influential commentators on the right "is why her allies think she could run for the White House," wrote Katy Balls, Washington editor for The Times. "Her ability to set the terms of debate and trigger the right just as Trump does the left."
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Can AOC Win the Working Class?
Before running for president, she needs to prove she can build a national workng-class coalition.
Aug 13, 2026
The bandwagon for Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president is rolling. She appears to have all the requisite qualities for success—smart, charismatic, passionate about her beliefs, and wildly popular among students and the left as well as among college-educated liberals. She is positioned as the successor to Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders after their successful Fighting Oligarchy series of rallies last year. And as a national candidate she could carry the social democratic banner forward, bringing, at the very least, tens of thousands of new members into the Democratic Socialists of America.
Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, believes AOC “can run a serious national campaign on the left and pull a movement behind it,” but in making his case he also points out a major shortcoming—she is not really a working-class candidate and doesn’t have a visceral understanding of class.
Sunkara frankly acknowledges that AOC, unlike Bernie, “sometimes drift(s) into the dialect of the progressive nonprofit and academic world, using terms more familiar in seminar rooms than union halls.”
For example, he points to the congresswoman’s response in 2022 to Democrats who objected to the use of Latinx, a term used by only about 3% of Hispanics. Sunkara says, “She suggested “Latine” as an improvement—a solution to a problem most Latinos didn’t know they had.”
Progressive dreams cannot become reality without extensive working-class support.
AOC’s promotion of the Green New Deal attempted to bridge the concerns of environmentalists and members concerned about social justice issues but suffered from her failure to frame it in terms of class. Sunkara describes her floor resolution as almost a parady of balkanized intersectionality discourse, He writes:
That resolution promised to repair the historic oppression of Indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, elderly people, unhoused people, people with disabilities, and youth. Of course, nobody on that list is unwronged. But itemizing members of the same economic class as discrete interest groups was the opposite of how the 2016 Sanders campaign spoke, and of how the left traditionally has. It was the scholarly language of intersectionality, not the commonsense solidarity she was trying to inspire.
Nevertheless, Sunkara is all in on an AOC candidacy in 2028.
I’m not.
My biggest concern is that we have scant evidence that AOC can succeed among working-class voters, especially white working-class voters. She has won election four times in an overwhelmingly Democratic district that is 52% Hispanic and only 18% white. New York’s 14th Congressional District, created in 2012, has never elected a Republican. Its predecessor, the 7th District, was represented by Democrats continuously from 1969 onward. AOC has yet to be tested in purple or red districts.
Sunkara points to the enormous crowds she and Bernie drew during their Fighting Oligarchy tour in conservative areas:
More than 12,500 people turned out for a rally in Nampa, Idaho, a bigger crowd than the number of registered Democrats in the entire county. Twenty thousand came out in deep-red Utah.
The Fighting Oligarchy tour certainly shows that the Sanders-AOC partnership has extraordinary appeal. It does not yet prove that AOC, by herself, can draw comparable crowds in red America.
And let’s put those numbers in perspective. In Idaho’s Canyon County, in which Nampa is located, there are roughly 68,000 registered Republicans, 32,000 unaffiliated voters, and only 12,000 registered Democrats. In Utah, more than 1 million voters (49%) are registered Republicans, while only about 14%, 250,000 or so, are Democrats. Those rallies suggest AOC could do well in Democratic primaries in red states, but they provide little support for the idea that AOC can break through the Republican advantage in deeply conservative areas.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say AOC wins the Democratic nomination in 2028. How might she fare against a Republican such as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, or Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)?
Foreign policy experience is likely to be a major issue. AOC, to date, has no diplomatic, military, intelligence, or executive national security experience. Nor has she served on the House Armed Services Committee, where much of Congress’ work on national security takes place. Think what you will about Vance and Rubio, they have been immersed in foreign policy in the second Trump term. Convincing skeptical voters that she is prepared to lead the country through major international crises will be a significant challenge because of her lack of experience.
On the electoral front, AOC needs to prove to voters like me that she can appeal to the working class. Can she attract a broader base than the one she has needed to win reelection in her home district? One way to do that would be to challenge and beat Chuck Schumer for New York’s Senate seat and then defeat the Republican nominee in the general election. There’s a good chance she could win both races, and if she did we would have a much clearer picture of whether she can sell a progressive program to working-class New Yorkers who do not live in overwhelmingly Democratic districts.
That experience and the success that followed would make her a much stronger candidate for higher office. And what is the rush? Ocasio-Cortez is only 36 years old. It is not asking too much for her to gain more experience and learn how to translate her ideological commitments into the kind of class-centered politics that Bernie Sanders mastered. She will undoubtedly continue to inspire the DSA faithful, a younger and well-educated cohort, but until I see her build genuine enthusiasm among blue-collar and service workers, I’m choosing to remain skeptical.
As I’ve written before, progressive dreams cannot become reality without extensive working-class support. Let’s see her do the hard work of winning its allegiance.
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Nearly 6 in 10 Pennsylvanians Say They'd Vote for 'Someone Else' Over Fetterman in 2028
"Saw a rat on the rails at Tasker-Morris and it has my vote."
Jul 31, 2026
Pennsylvanians aren't just sick of Sen. John Fetterman. Nearly 6 in 10 say that if he came up for reelection today, they'd sooner check the box for literally anybody else.
That's according to a PennLive/Bravo Group poll released Wednesday, in which just 40% of likely voters in Pennsylvania said they'd vote for their Democratic senator, compared with 58% who said they'd choose an unspecified "someone else."
While he was elected in 2022 as a progressive in the mold of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Fetterman's transition into a left-punching Fox News talking head over the past four years has made him abysmally unpopular within his own party.
After watching Fetterman enthusiastically cheer Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, block efforts to halt President Donald Trump’s illegal wars in Venezuela and Iran, defend the honor of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as agents killed several US citizens and immigrants, and mock the idea of lowering Americans’ healthcare costs, just 19% of Democrats in his home state said they approved of him compared to 69% who disapproved, according to a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month.
Republicans, meanwhile, are loving him: 77% said they approve of how he's handling his job.
Fetterman is now publicly flirting with a party switch, citing the rising number of Democrats who have voted to restrict arms to Israel as the primary reason.
“If our party ever becomes, and just makes it official, the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me,” Fetterman said earlier this month. “That’s our special ally, you know?”
But Fetterman's pariah status among Democrats doesn't mean he can be easily cast out.
With the strong possibility that Democrats could hold a narrow Senate majority after November's midterms, Fetterman is setting himself up to be de facto king of the Senate with the power to near-singlehandedly dictate policy in the vein of the conservative former Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) during the Biden years.
Fearing the party’s resident “ogre,” as US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed recently called him, may break ranks in the next Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has spent the week trying to make nice. As Semafor reported on Friday:
Chuck Schumer showered John Fetterman with praise this week, declaring him a “very good member,” liked and respected by colleagues in Democrats’ “big tent party.”
Fetterman was grateful for the shoutout and has repeatedly shot down the idea he’d switch caucuses in the Senate. But he’s still not sure he fits with where his party is going.
“I truly appreciate the leader’s nice words,” Fetterman told Semafor on Thursday. He added that “I don’t know if the Democratic Party is ‘big tent’ enough for proud, pro-Israel supporters that also strongly reject the warped mutation of” democratic socialists now rising in their ranks.
Fetterman, who has long struggled with his mental and physical health and expressed apathy about fulfilling basic senatorial tasks like showing up to votes and committee hearings, has not yet committed to running for reelection in 2028.
Even if he did, it's hard to imagine him faring well in a Democratic primary where most voters would sooner vote for a rat they saw crawling through a SEPTA station, as one social media user put it.
An effort by progressive groups to "primary Fetterman" is already underway, and as the left swaggers from recent victories over the establishment, names like the Berniecrat Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) are being bandied about as possible replacements.
And despite his current status as a GOP darling, it's unclear if they'd choose a turncoat over the genuine article. While his foreign policy record would make Dick Cheney blush, Fetterman has not yet gone full-MAGA on some load-bearing issues like LGBTQ+ rights and gutting social programs.
Having immolated any goodwill on the left, Fetterman appears to lack a clear constituency.
Meanwhile, according to the new poll, those who want him gone really want him gone: 30% of Pennsylvanians surveyed said they'd "definitely" vote for someone else and 29% said they'd "probably" vote for someone else. By comparison, just 12% said they'd "definitely" vote for Fetterman again, while 28% said they "probably" would.
Isi Breen, a former communications official for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), remarked on social media, "I literally have never seen an elected official losing so badly to 'literally anyone else.'"
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'Newsom Does Not Want to Tax Billionaires,' Say Campaigners, 'But Wants You to Think He Does'
"Pretending to propose his own national solution is clearly a cynical smoke screen to let California billionaires off the hook," argues the Billionaire Tax Now campaign as it seeks to counter "5 tricks" being deployed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies.
Jun 27, 2026
Campaigners behind the one-time 5% billionaires wealth tax in California are calling out what they describe as trickery and deception by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who on Friday released a proposal for a national billionaire's income tax even as he actively opposes the effort to tax the wealth of billionaires in the state that he and his party currently control.
"Newsom does not want to tax billionaires," said the Billionaire Tax Now campaign in a statement, "but he wants you to think he does."
As Common Dreams reported Friday, critics of Newsom warn that the governor thinks "he can fool everyone" with his proposal for a national tax on the income of billionaires while simultaneously opposing a wealth tax headed for a referendum vote in November designed to fill a massive healthcare funding gap in the state created by the budget bill passed by Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump last year.
While the so-called "One, Big Beautiful Bill" offered another windfall tax giveaway to super-wealthy individuals and corporations, it eviscerated funding for healthcare and other key social programs nationwide.
The Friday statement from the coalition behind the campaign, headed by SEIU—United Health Wealth, details "5 tricks" that Newsom has already deployed in order to fool voters about the wealth tax in California while concealing what they say are "his real motivations: to continue giving billionaires tax breaks at the expense of working people."
According to the group:
TRICK 1: Pretend to take on billionaires while really giving them a pass.
Over his many months of plainly attempting to sink the California billionaire tax, Governor Newsom has made it clear that he is more interested in protecting billionaires than working people. A federal billionaire tax has already been proposed by US Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna—and while you don’t need to be a political insider to know it would require a profound reshaping of Congress to pass that bill, Newsom has nonetheless failed to endorse it.
TRICK 2: Conveniently say that a federal, not state-based solution is the best way forward on this issue—despite having supported state-based policy solutions in the past.
Pretending to propose his own national solution is clearly a cynical smoke screen to let California billionaires off the hook. It’s just a PR tactic to give himself more cover to oppose the California Billionaire Tax. The Governor has supported state-based solutions to federally-created policy problems in the past—just conveniently not this state-based solution, which would involve a 5% tax on about 200 Californian billionaires who hold $2.2 trillion in wealth to save lives and keep hospitals open.
TRICK 3: Attempt to divide support by saying the California Billionaire Tax is bad policy for not fixing every problem in the state.
It’s pretty simple: the California Billionaire Tax is a direct response to the healthcare cuts facing our state, so the funding goes to healthcare. 90% of funds will prevent ER and hospital closures, and 10% will go toward food assistance and public education.
No, the funding will not go toward housing, 911 operators, and other public services the Governor listed out to try to generate additional opposition—just the massive $100 billion healthcare crisis that is putting patient lives at risk. The fact that this measure doesn’t fix every problem in the Governor’s budget is a problem for the Governor, not a problem with the proposal itself.
TRICK 4: Spread misinformation about the California Billionaire Tax’s impact on Planned Parenthood.
The Governor is hoping you don’t know that the massive federal healthcare cuts in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” gutted funding for California’s Planned Parenthood clinics and that the California Billionaire Tax is the only viable way to generate the funding needed to save this critical reproductive healthcare. Luckily, frontline healthcare workers, including those who work at Planned Parenthood clinics, along with actual Planned Parenthood patients have been hard at work spreading the truth to voters across the state.
TRICK 5: Falsely claim that “one stakeholder” is driving the California Billionaire Tax.
Governor Newsom continues desperately trying to make the California Billionaire Tax sound fringe, when in fact voters consistently support the tax by double-digit margins. The Billionaire Tax Now coalition has a growing army of more than 5,000 volunteers, and submitted over 1.6 million signatures—more than double the number needed to qualify for the ballot. The tax is supported by elected officials including US Senator Bernie Sanders Representative Ro Khanna, and Senator Chris Murphy, and community and labor groups including Teamsters California, AFSCME California, CIR, UNITE HERE Local 11 and Local 30, AFT Local 1521, Oxfam America, Our Revolution, CA, Color of Change, and Democratic Socialists of America–CA. Does that sound like “one stakeholder”?
The launch of Newsom's proposal for a national income tax, his team acknowledged, comes as the governor considers a run for president in 2028.
Citing the threat of capital flight and billionaires fleeing California for states with friendlier tax codes, Newsom argues that the fight for a tax on the super-rich "belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place."
However, as the campaign behind the state-level tax points out and studies have shown, the mythical threat of the wealthy packing their bags has been shown to be largely that—threats and a myth.
Nadia Rahman, an activist and organizer in San Francisco, was among those urging people not to be duped by the Newsom's position on the California ballot initiative.
"Do not be fooled," Rahman warned. "Newsom is an avowed incrementalist pitching a “national billionaires tax” to have something to deflect to when he runs for president and is questioned about why he worked so hard to kill the wealth tax in his home state of California in his final act as Governor."
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