Let’s just get this out of the way first: there is no such thing as a perfect world three years from now, as it will take generations to dig out of the hole that Donald Trump is creating for us. As this title suggests, it’s about leftists winning elections, which as history demonstrates, further pushes this blog into the realm of the theoretical. But we’re having our best day since Bernie won Nevada and cable news completely melted down and I nearly died from laughter, so you’ll have to excuse my potentially naïve belief that we can win more than one major election this decade.
But we got one. A big one. How Zohran Mamdani governs as Mayor of New York City will have an influential say in how the left is viewed going forward, but right now, we had a very explicit election between “better things aren’t possible” and “yes they are” and “yes they are” won. Polls currently show that lefty standard bearer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s worst-case scenario in 2028 is thanking Chuck Schumer for keeping her seat warm in the Senate, and she really could be our next president as things stand right now. We’re allowed to have a little hope today, as a treat.
A Democratic democratic socialist is going to be the mayor of America’s largest city. The governor responsible for America’s third-largest city has been one of the most aggressive challengers to Trump’s authoritarianism, and the moment is so clear that the grandstanding governor overseeing America’s second-largest city and the globe’s fourth largest economy is meeting it. The tepid Democratic establishment still afraid to challenge Trump has taken nonstop L’s since November, and it’s not unreasonable to hope these L’s could continue into 2028.
So what would a perfect lefty world after America’s next major set of elections look like? Obviously, we have to start at the top. The age of the imperial presidency has made it the big prize, and no perfect lefty world exists without commanding the imperial machine. AOC is so clearly our best chance per current polling, but it should be noted that if we plotted the 2028 campaign along the 2008 timescale, we have yet to reach the point where Senator Barack Obama existed. A lot of things can obviously still happen, but also, that’s a cop out, we’re filled with hope, and ready to charge into the unknown and embrace man’s hubris that we can see through to the other side.
The problem with President AOC is that reports are she likes Congress and may prefer to stay there in an ideal world. In a perfect lefty universe that actually matches up with the timeframe our Trump-scale destruction is creating, her going the LBJ route is probably the most effective way to get the most good things done, where Senate Majority Leader Ocasio-Cortez works alongside a Democratic presidency before winning the 2036 presidential election in a landslide.
But Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York proves that the left has plenty of hope that serious lefty political talents can emerge to win the moment and fill up halls of power across the country. Looking at someone like Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois demonstrates how younger, more media savvy campaigns like hers and Mamdani’s are set up to exploit the digital age. The Democratic establishment fails at politics in large part because they depend on a mainstream media that hates them to disseminate their message, when all it does is create an elite echo chamber that most people under the age of 50 barely interact with. Mamdani’s YouTube videos did more to tell voters who he is and what he stands for than any Meet the Press interview ever would.
There is broad dissatisfaction within the Democratic Party, and a now a generation of campaigners who grew up learning how to exploit their fundamental weaknesses has come of age. What the positive campaigns run by AOC and Mamdani have proven is that embracing the Democratic Party itself is the key to winning Democratic voters, you just have to isolate the people in power responsible when airing your grievances against it. Edgelord rants against liberalism may be how to command attention on the internet (trust me, I know), but politics is about building coalitions, and the power of a left-liberal alliance in the Democratic Party was just proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in New York City.
It is not unreasonable at all to assume that there is a 2010-style Tea Party-like wave en route for the feckless Democratic establishment (I would argue it is likely), but what that wave looks like is the big question. Our coalition to abolish ICE now includes conservatives like Bill Kristol, and it makes for some strange ideological bedfellows, but it also proves the primacy of much of our politics in this moment. If a democratic socialist can be the Mayor of New York City, there’s no reason to think that democratic socialists and our political allies can’t ride the tsunami of resentment headed for establishment Democratic capitulators and collaborators.
But beating the incumbent feckless Democrats is only half the battle, and the 2026 Senate map is described as a very difficult one for Democrats, while I think that overstates it. There are a lot of Republican states on the board (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maine and Alaska) but all those states have Republican incumbents. They have to win all but three of those races to maintain their Senate majority. There are only thirteen seats the Democrats have to defend, and they are in predominantly blue states (Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia). The political gambler in me would describe the 2026 Senate map as a Republican home game against an extremely live road dog with the potential to win outright. The 2028 Senate map looks much more favorable to the point where Democrats could be called favorites.
The 2026 Senate elections may look favorable to Republicans, but the national environment does not right now, making their historically thin House majority extremely vulnerable, with the potential to turn their Senate strength into a weakness given how many GOP incumbents are at risk. Republicans are getting picked off in deep red districts across the country in special elections (Trump even pulled Elise Stefanik’s UN nomination over fears they would lose her deep red seat), and The Downballot’s special elections tracker has Democrats currently running 15.4 percent ahead of their 2024 margins, and 11 percent ahead of 2020. There is real evidence to believe we could find ourselves living in a world a few years from now where a Democratic Party usurped by the left-liberal alliance exploits an environment favorable for Democrats to win congressional majorities. I don’t think we need AOC in the Senate past her obvious skills as a legislator that do make her a worthy heir to LBJ’s throne, because we have so many potential Zohran Mamdanis ready to rise to the occasion.
But we don’t have anyone like AOC contending for president. Hell, the Democratic establishment doesn’t have anything like her contending for president. I think right now, in this nascent pre-Senator Obama moment, I would change my prior oddsmaking column to make her the frontrunner in 2028 with Gavin Newsom back in the top tier of contenders. If Trump fully commits to occupying California and Newsom continues to fight back in a way the feckless Democratic establishment never has, he would be a formidable challenger should we even have an election in 2028. But today is a day for hope and today I am hopeful in my belief that the path for President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is stronger than it is for any other rumored or telegraphed 2028 candidate. The left really does have a major opportunity to take some serious power for itself over the coming years.
Zohran Mamdani is just the beginning. There is an army of outsiders en route to challenge for positions of power that Democrats have abdicated, and voters have shown they are willing to listen to alternatives. The party’s apathy and incompetence has built a wave of public resentment against it that is simply unmatched in our lifetimes. What that reactionary ambition looks like is still very much to be determined, but if New York City is any indication, a left-liberal alliance is pretty hard to beat in this anti-incumbent environment. It’s possible that a few years from now, we could live in a world where AOC controls the White House and productive politicians like Brad Lander are working with her to craft legislation in what was Chuck Schumer’s Senate, all while Mayor Mamdani uses his immense power to implement an ambitious agenda alongside a new generation of leaders trying to clean up Trump’s mess and stave off American decline across the country. Doomerism is not an option in the age of collapse. This is a time for hope and for the people who want to change the world to run for office and actually do it.
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