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The clues of a possible future run inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tour of New York State

2026-09-28T11:00:29.675Z / CNN

With her supporters and critics alike debating what she’ll do next, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s multi-day swing to parts of New York State hundreds of miles from her district gave some clues of what a potential statewide run – or a national one – might look like.

There were meetings with local mayors, a stop at a harvest festival and a packed town hall at Cornell University. She campaigned with moderate battleground Democratic Rep. Josh Riley, who won his last election by three points and reached out to her traditional allies within the Democratic Socialists of America.

Ocasio-Cortez herself is resisting the idea that every move should be viewed through the lens of whether she will run for Senate or president in 2028, telling CNN that for now she’s focused on being reelected to the House.

Her allies see her tour as evidence that she is building something larger than a congressional operation. Republicans, meanwhile, are using her presence upstate to argue that the Democratic Party is moving further toward the political left.

“She has this ability to draw people. She’s quite charismatic, quite friendly, and people really respond to her, which I saw today on the visit,” Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan told reporters following her visit.

“This is the first time I did a public event with her but I watched how people throughout the building responded to her, and if you see the number of my staff … usually they’re not out here for a press conference, and I don’t think they’re out here to look at me.”

Ryan declined to say what her next political move should be but heaped praise on her for inspiring a new generation of political activism.

Ocasio-Cortez and the mayor took a tour of City Hall, where a handful of blushing staffers asked for photos. They also went to Gabriel’s Gate, a Buffalo institution where plates of wings and French fries are served piled high.

They talked municipal government, the need for universal childcare, and how the Trump administration’s latest round of tariffs has hurt some businesses in the city, which is just across the Niagara River from Canada.

At an organizer training session held inside a contemporary art center in Buffalo, organizers talked about the need to focus on voters who have become inactive — meaning they have missed the last two federal elections putting them at risk of being purged from voter rolls.

While it wasn’t Ocasio-Cortez’s first time in Buffalo, this time she said she was bringing a message about the upcoming midterm elections along with a plan to organize inactive voters in communities across New York.

“There are inactive voters everywhere in the country and sometimes people put that fault on the voter, but I think a lot of it sometimes is the fault of a government that hasn’t reached out to people and hasn’t touched people and shown what can be done for the public good,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez’s team says the effort will target inactive Democratic voters statewide, including nearly 5,000 in Erie County, a Democratic-leaning but politically competitive part of western New York where the party’s left wing has notched several wins in recent years.

Democratic socialist Adam Bojak, who won the Democratic June primary nomination in a three-way race for Buffalo’s 149th Assembly District, also held a private meeting with Ocasio-Cortez.

Bojak’s race is seen as the latest sign that DSA’s electoral footprint is extending far beyond New York City. Bojak, a Buffalo DSA member, defeated the Democratic Party-backed candidate with nearly 50 percent of the vote after his campaign knocked on 25,000 doors and raised six figures from small donors. Ocasio-Cortez, one of the nation’s most prominent democratic socialists, rejoined the DSA’s New York City chapter in August.

“Our policies are extremely popular across the political spectrum,” Bojak told CNN. “It doesn’t matter what letter is next to your name, people know that they want universal childcare, universal healthcare and they want to tax the rich, so the things that we’re fighting for are broadly popular, regardless of the party affiliation of the person you’re talking to.”

Bojak is on track to win the general election in November. He would become the first DSA member elected to the State Legislature from western New York.

Ocasio-Cortez’s 14th District in New York City is among the bluest in the country. Buffalo, Syracuse and parts of upstate New York present a very different political landscape, with Democrats competing for support among working-class and suburban voters in communities where Republicans remain competitive.

Hours before Ocasio-Cortez was set to meet with Buffalo’s mayor, local Republicans and moderate Democrats gathered in front of the cameras to argue that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was gaining too much influence in western New York, warning that their politics are largely out of step with the more moderate long-term Democrats who live in the region.

Erie County Republican Chairman Michael Kracker told CNN he sees the Democratic party divide as an opportunity.

“Whether they’re in charge of the New York Democratic Party apparatus or not, AOC and Zohran Mamdani are the ideological leaders of today’s Democratic Party, and I think that puts them out of step with a lot of moderate, old-school Democrats, and that’s where I think there’s opportunities for the Republican Party to say, we welcome your voices in our party.”

While resisting the 2028 talk, Ocasio-Cortez did make clear to reporters she saw her brand of politics working in rural areas as well.

“The whole point of this is to not write off or make assumptions about a single person or a single voter in the state of New York,” she said.