Yes, AOC has aspirations for higher office. Whether that is taking Chuck Schumer’s seat in the Senate, or swinging for the White House is the question. There’s just one teeny tiny problem. Several prominent Democrat candidates around the country are and have distanced themselves from her since mid-summer.

Over the last week or so, AOC has been running around in upstate New York testing the waters. 

Her swing through Buffalo and Ithaca was officially aimed at boosting Democratic turnout in the midterms. But it doubled as a way to test AOC’s appeal far from her home base of Queens and the Bronx, and build relationships with locals.

In Buffalo, she met privately with Mayor Sean Ryan, then held an impromptu press conference with him, generating coverage of the duo on local TV news.

She and her team later kicked off a voter-turnout operation that could help them gather information about the electorate outside New York City.

“I want to be very forthright about our intentions here, which is to transform the state of New York,” Ocasio-Cortez told activists in a Buffalo arts center who were attending a training session of hers aimed at getting inactive voters to the polls.

In Ithaca, she appeared at an apple festival with Rep. Josh Riley (D-N.Y.) and on Sunday was scheduled to headline a “Students vs. Billionaires” town hall. It’s friendly terrain: The city is home to several democratic socialist elected officials, and Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

I have to laugh at the thought that the press conference was “impromptu.” I’d bet even money that the media was given the memo before the meeting with Buffalo’s mayor even started.

For Democrats, New York’s Senate seat is a huge priority for both the Senate as well as the 2028 Presidential race. So it really isn’t surprising that AOC is positioning herself, even as she engages in performative stunts like harvesting and freezing her eggs and abruptly returning as a dues-paying member of the DSA.

Here’s one of the problems with AOC and her “rockstar” brand. People are becoming very well aware of how toxic and antisemitic the Democrat Socialist party really is.

Case in point? Yesterday’s “Students vs Billionaires” town hall at Cornell. They spent their time railing against that icky word…capitalism.

“Cornell is fundamentally a capitalist institution that prioritizes billionaires and profit over students and community and is controlled by CEO trustees that are profiting off of genocide and war,” Petrova said to applause inside the Ithaca Downtown Conference Center.

I find it very ironic that they are doing so when the tuition they pay PER YEAR averages nearly $100,000. They have no problem with their parents making money to fund their diatribes at Cornell. The hypocrisy is strong with them. As is their blatant antisemitism.

Yes indeed. Having students chant “from the river to the sea” before you step on the stage is quite the look. Then again, AOC voted against the House resolution that condemned that virulent phrase, so she’s obviously comfortable with it.

At AOC’s standing-room-only “Students vs. Billionaires” rally in Ithaca, attended by more than 2,000 people, the Cornell Young Democratic Socialists who helped welcome her led the crowd in “From the river to the sea” — and “Long live the student intifada.”

AOC did not distance… pic.twitter.com/zaT4bLm3rL

— Trisha Posner (@trishaposner) September 28, 2026

Here’s the other problem with AOC and her embrace of everything far left. Key Democrat candidates have been scrubbing their campaign profiles. They are …erasing AOC and hoping the voters in their districts will forget that they happily embraced her earlier this summer.

Sam Forstag, a progressive House candidate in Montana who rallied with AOC in May en route to winning the Democratic primary, suggested that he doesn’t want her to campaign for him in the conservative state for the general election.

“I don’t intend to be having a lot of folks from out of state campaigning with me over these next 40 days,” he told Axios when asked about AOC stumping for him.

Forstag has scrubbed Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement from his campaign’s website.

Driving the news: Some Democrats in other close races have explicitly asked Ocasio-Cortez’s team to stay away, party officials told Axios.

“The polling is atrocious for her,” said a senior Democratic strategist working in a key swing district. “She’s a lightning rod.”

In other words, calling AOC a “lightning rod” is a polite way of saying she is toxic for Democrats right now.

AOC may have political aspirations. She may throw her hat in the ring to fail upwards. What works in her district isn’t something that will necessarily work across an entire state, or the country for that matter. Her people may realize that, given they are trying to put all conversations about that on hold until after the mid-terms.

AOC may want to be a “rockstar” politician, the question is, do the Democrats WANT her type of “cosmetic socialism” as a Senator or President?

Feature Photo Credit: Original artwork by Victory Girls Darleen Click