Democratic ticket remains a work in progress with Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris or AOC
Both former vice-president Kamala Harris and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Harris’s presidential failure and AOC’s blunders in Bavaria last weekend are all the more meaningful as the two women generate 2028 hype, even being touted as a potential joint ticket. There has been some speculation that Harris will yet again vie for the presidency and AOC, currently 36 years old, will run as her VP. It’s a match made in progressive heaven – but one that many Washington watchers suggest is doomed to fail. And for good reason.
This past weekend, AOC made her first major international appearance at the Munich Security Conference. In a speech heavily critical of the Trump administration’s muscular foreign policy, AOC demonstrated “a complete lack of chops about international issues”, according to New York Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. AOC’s gaffes included mistakenly positioning Venezuela below the equator and failing to answer convincingly about how the US might respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The four-term representative from Queens had hoped that her Zohran Mamdani-esque focus on affordability and other working-class concerns would gain traction with the world’s leading decision-makers. Instead, AOC merely confirmed, claims Sheinkopf, that “she’s not ready for prime time on the international stage”.
AOC’s showing in Germany comes just as Harris – also criticised for her lack of foreign-policy experience – begins to reposition herself on the US political stage. This month, Harris relaunched her dormant social-media accounts as “an online organising project for next-generation campaigning”. The rebrand was a welcome dose of good-ish news for Harris, who was lambasted in January as she crisscrossed the American South promoting her 2024 campaign memoir, 107 Days, while courting African-American supporters. Though black people – her most crucial voting block – continue to display loyalty, influential Democratic donors insist (albeit anonymously), “Kamala hasn’t accepted [that] she’s not running yet.”
Both women are dependent on a declining popularity base to boost their credibility, meaning that they could actually weaken rather than aid one another. Donald Trump gained ballots across traditional Democratic demographics, such as Latinos, women, young people and African-Americans when he stood against Harris in 2024. These are the exact same cohorts that AOC has relied on for her own congressional support. Also worrisome is that AOC’s Munich moment was rife with the type of infelicities that have long plagued Harris – her infamous penchant for “word salad” – making it another potentially disastrous double whammy for the duo. The Democrats’ history of recycling failing candidates (think Hillary Clinton) has to be abandoned.
So who, then, might make more sense for the Dems in 2028? Though wins by socialist-leaning Democratic mayoral candidates in New York and Seattle last year suggest that the party’s fringe is flying, the US has traditionally opted for moderates. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, initially comes to mind and he too was in Munich over the weekend to promote his internationalist bona fides.
But having “run” for the presidency now for almost a decade, Newsom already feels stale and past his expiration date. He might have taken on Trump on the immigration front and reversed his views around culture-war flashpoints but despite his classic good looks, Newsom simply lacks sex appeal. His prostrating to Trump following the Los Angeles wildfires last year proved that he’s more mush than muscle, while his recent book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, barely caused a ripple among the media or party stalwarts.
A better bet would be a Pennsylvania double-punch pairing: Democratic governor Josh Shapiro and senator John Fetterman. Though their ticket would be complicated by their vocal support for Israel, each has demonstrated a level of verbal and moral clarity that voters now crave. True, both Shapiro and Fetterman are white men in a party consumed by optics and identity politics. But progressive politicking can only result in progress if its politicians actually get elected. Though the pair have famously been frosty to one another, Fetterman’s hardscrabble, working-class Pennsylvania roots complement Shapiro’s more urbane sophistication. Pennsylvania is also the type of must-win battleground state that Harris failed to capture. Fetterman and Shapiro will have to move on from their current frostiness but in a country that has elected Trump twice, the improbable feels increasingly probable.
David Kaufman is a New York-based journalist.
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