Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested in a new interview that her public service ambitions may carry her beyond the House of Representatives, heightening speculation that the progressive star could seek higher office.
“I don’t know if I’m really going to be staying in the House forever, or if I do stay in the House, what that would look like,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told Vanity Fair in an interview for the magazine’s December cover story. “I don’t see myself really staying where I’m at for the rest of my life.”
The progressive congresswoman and superstar of the Democratic Party’s left wing has often been mentioned as a possible primary opponent for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2022 or Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2024. President Donald Trump has taken particular pleasure in invoking Ocasio-Cortez as a threat to Schumer, while describing prominent Democratic leaders including presidential nominee Joe Biden as beholden to her more liberal agenda.
Ocasio-Cortez is also viewed as one of the likeliest inheritors of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ progressive coalition if she were to run for president. The freshman House lawmaker, who endorsed Sanders in the 2020 White House race, turned 31 earlier this month and would meet the Constitutional presidential age requirement of 35 years by November 2024.
Another possibility is Ocasio-Cortez joining a potential Biden administration in some capacity. She was tapped in May to serve as a co-chair of the Biden-Sanders joint task force focused on climate change — one of six working groups meant to advise the Biden campaign on policy.
But Ocasio-Cortez told Vanity Fair that she did not “want to aspire to a quote-unquote higher position just for the sake of that title or just for the sake of having a different or higher position.”
“I truly make an assessment to see if I can be more effective,” she said. “And so, you know, I don’t know if I could necessarily be more effective in an administration, but, for me that’s always what the question comes down to.”