AOC opens up about race, gender in weighing possible 2028 White House bid

Rep.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , D-N.Y., raised concerns during an interview published Tuesday about how her race and gender could factor into a potential 2028 presidential bid.

"Pretty candidly, I think about my identity," Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with The New York Times.

"I’m not naïve to the fact that we are living under a very regressive administration, and I happen to be a woman, and I, you know, happen to be Latina.

And I think that there’s a lot of conversation about electability, and I don’t kind of shy away from those realities." The progressive congresswoman said of a possible White House run, "I think about it personally." "I am 36, I’m about to turn 37 years old — and what that means for my life," she added.

AOC, ASKED ABOUT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, SAYS HER AMBITION IS 'WAY BIGGER THAN THAT' "This country has never elected a female president.

Why are we pretending that this is not a factor?" she told the Times.

"That doesn’t make it impossible, but to act as though it’s not a factor in anything ever is really a form of, like, denialism." Ocasio-Cortez said the discussion around race and gender was often seen as a complaint or excuse.

"I often hesitate to even talk about it," she told the outlet, "because people then just register it as an excuse or a complaint." "If you’re asking me about the things that I weigh, of course, that’s part of what I weigh," she told the Times of possibly running for president.

"It’s funny because it’s kind of like, everyone else is allowed to talk about it, but I’m not?" HASAN PIKER BRUSHES OFF DEMS WHO SEE HIM AS A LIABILITY, NAMES HIS '28 CHOICE She argued people get defensive when gender is suggested as playing a role in electoral politics.

"I experience it tremendously — from the right and from the left," she told the Times.

Ocasio-Cortez has been generating 2028 buzz .

LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman described the progressive firebrand as "pragmatic." Hoffman made the comments at Politico's Decoded Summit in September, and said former Vice President Kamala Harris would have a "very challenging path" to the nomination.

"It depends a little bit," Hoffman said when asked whether he would support Ocasio-Cortez for a 2028 run.