This is an opinion piece. I want to know what you think.
Joyce and I have, indeed, been thinking that a woman can't win the Presidency in this woman-hating country, but Rachel Hurley makes a good case for AOC being able to win -- like Mamdani. Read it and give me your opinion.
--Kim
After I posted that I thought AOC could win the presidency if she ran, I got a lot of pushback about how we shouldn't support another woman candidate because it's been proven one can't win.
Well, that's a bunch of bullshit.
DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT BE GASLIT INTO BELIEVING THIS - IT'S DOING THE WORK OF THE OPPOSITION.
The problem with that logic is it treats all women candidates as interchangeable parts in the same broken machine, when the actual issue was the machine itself. Both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris were qualified. Both were experienced. Both ran disciplined campaigns. But here's what they also had in common: they were establishment candidates who couldn't generate the kind of enthusiasm that wins elections.
Let's be clear about what happened in 2016 and 2024. Hillary Clinton embodied everything working-class voters had come to resent about the political establishment. She didn't campaign in Wisconsin - a state that hadn't gone Republican in thirty years - while Trump went five times. Her message was technocratic and calculated when people wanted someone who understood they were drowning. She leaned hard into the glass ceiling narrative when voters just wanted someone to talk about their actual lives.
Kamala Harris learned some lessons from that. She explicitly avoided identity politics, pivoted to the center, and ran a tight campaign. But she was still tethered to an administration people blamed for their economic pain, and she still couldn't generate the organic excitement that drives people to the polls. The enthusiasm gap wasn't about her gender. It was about what she represented.
You know who did generate excitement? Obama in 2008.
Not because he ran as a black man, but because he ran as an outsider promising fundamental change. He wasn't asking people to vote for him because of who he was. He was giving them a reason to believe things could actually be different.
Here's what both Hillary and Kamala were missing: nobody was excited to vote for them. They were competent. They were prepared. They checked every box. But checking boxes doesn't win elections when people are angry about a system that feels rigged against them. Obama won because people were excited to vote for him. Trump won because people were excited to vote for him. He lost when people were excited to vote against him. Hillary and Kamala generated neither of those things in sufficient numbers.
Now let's talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
If AOC runs in 2028 - and every poll suggests she's positioning for it - she will be running as the complete opposite of what Hillary and Kamala represented. She's not establishment. She beat the establishment. In 2018, she was a bartender who took down a ten-term incumbent that the party machine assumed was untouchable. She's been a target of the Democratic leadership almost as much as she's been a target of Republicans.
The crowds she's drawing right now aren't polite. They're massive. Her "Fighting Oligarchy" tour with Bernie Sanders attracted over 200,000 people across multiple cities. She raised $15 million in 2025 - almost double what Speaker Mike Johnson raised - and 99 percent of it came from small-dollar donors. That's not establishment money. That's grassroots enthusiasm.
She polls second or third in early 2028 Democratic primary polling, with a plus-60 net favorability rating among Democrats. That's higher than any other potential candidate. And she's doing this while still being 35 years old, with Nate Silver - the guy who predicted Obama's rise - saying she's his top pick for the Democratic nominee.
But here's the critical difference: AOC generates the thing both Hillary and Kamala couldn't. Excitement. People show up for her. Young voters who usually sit out elections vote for her. Working-class communities that feel abandoned by Democrats see her as someone who actually gets it. She talks about oligarchy and corporate power in language that resonates with people who are tired of being told the economy is doing great while they can't afford rent.
She's not asking you to vote for her because she'd be the first woman president. She's giving you reasons to vote for her because she actually wants to change the things that are making your life harder. That's the Obama formula. That's what works.
The establishment Democrats who are already nervous about an AOC run are the same people who keep losing to Trump.
They think she's too radical, too young, too unpolished. Those are the exact same things they said about Obama in 2005, when he wasn't even included in polls yet. They said it about her when she was challenging Joe Crowley. She won anyway.
If you're already writing off AOC - or any woman candidate - because Hillary and Kamala lost, you're doing the Republicans' work for them. You're accepting their framing that the problem is women, not the specific candidates or the strategies they ran. You're helping them build the narrative that will make it harder for the next woman to win.
The issue was never that America won't elect a woman. The issue is that America won't elect establishment candidates who can't give people a reason to be excited. Obama proved you can overcome enormous obstacles if you generate genuine enthusiasm. We just saw this AGAIN with Zohran Mamdani in NYC. Trump proves that chaotic energy and opposition can drive turnout. Hillary and Kamala couldn't do either.
AOC can. That's the whole point.
When she walks into the 2028 race - if she does - the vibe will be completely different. She'll be running against the establishment, not as it. She'll be offering fundamental change, not continuity. She'll have a movement behind her, not just a coalition of people who think the other guy is worse.
The Democratic Party's biggest problem right now is that it keeps running candidates people feel obligated to vote for rather than candidates people actually want to vote for. That's a strategy problem, not a gender problem. And if party insiders are already trying to kneecap AOC before she even announces, they're about to learn the same lesson they should have learned in 2016: you can't beat populist energy with establishment caution.
Writing off women candidates because the last two lost is lazy analysis. It ignores why they lost. It ignores who they were. It ignores the context of their campaigns. Most importantly, it ignores that there are women candidates who represent something fundamentally different.
If people want Democrats to start winning again, they need candidates who generate enthusiasm, not just competence. They need candidates who are running toward something, not just away from Trump. They need candidates who make people believe things can actually change.
AOC does that. Hillary and Kamala didn't. The difference isn't gender. It's everything else.
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