AOC Leads Vance — But That’s Not the Real Story

In political nose, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez now leads in a new nationwide poll over Vice President J.D. vance. Now this is the first. Traditionally she is seen as more of an outlier, someone who has appeal among liberal progressive voters in the Democratic Party. But now we're looking at a new nationwide poll of voters showing that she would, in a head to head matchup, actually beat the vice president. J.D. vance. This is a new poll that just released by Newsweek showing hypothetical 2028 presidential matchup. She would get 51% to 49%. Excuse me, reported by Newsweek. The poll is by an organization called the Argument Vericite Survey. And it's within a 2.7% margin of error based on how they conducted the poll. So what are we to make of this? I'll give credit to aoc, the Congresswoman, she kind of laughed it off and saying, you know, polls are not really very meaningful at this point. Give her some credit for self awareness, not taking yourself too seriously. Now, she clearly is ambitious. She clearly has communication talents and is seen as a bright star on the Democratic horizon. Many want her to run for United States Senate from her home state of New York against the incumbent, Chuck Schumer. Whether she'll do that or not, I don't know. But what are we to make of this idea that someone who was perceived by many in the media to be so far to the left, so extreme, so beyond the pale, is actually beating J.D. vance in the polls? Well, couple of things. One thing to keep in mind is JD Vance is profoundly unpopular. He's always been significantly less popular than President Trump. He just barely, barely squeaked in in his Senate race a few years ago in a state where Trump won handily. So he vastly underperformed Donald Trump in his own state of Ohio. Now, it's true, I don't think he lost many votes for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, but I don't think any vice presidential nominee really hurts presidential nominee, especially when you have a personality as strong as Donald Trump. J.D. vance I'm not quite sure why. Okay, I do know why. He is seen as the front runner for the Republican nomination in 2028 simply because he's the Vice president. And that's generally the way it goes. He gets more attention than anyone else. The vice president gets more attention than anyone else in the country other than the president. So it's not at all uncommon for vice presidents to be seen as the heir apparent. George H.W. bush benefited from that when he was Ronald Reagan's vice president. So not a big surprise there. Initially Joe Biden seemed like he might have a good chance at winning the nomination after Obama, but Hillary Clinton ran and he was kind of pushed aside. It does make you wonder what would have happened if he had run in 2016 and then finished his term his two terms by 2024 at the time when the old age set in and no one would care because he'd be seven and a half years in. Makes you wonder how history would have been different there. But what are we to make of the polls at this point? It's name id. There simply aren't that many candidates running for president who have high enough name identification. It very well may be that the the Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, who most people have never heard of, actually does much, much better in the primary season once we get to 2028 against someone like AOC. Here's my big problem with both of them. A I don't think Most people like J.D. vance, number one. Number two, I think he has a huge problem within the Republican Party. There is a huge, huge growing movement. Some of them call themselves gropers, some of them call themselves heritage Americans. They really think America should be run by white people. And I mean really white people. I don't mean white people who marry somebody first generation from India. Now I wouldn't vote against JD Vance because of the fact that he has a wife whose parents are from India. We should point out she was born here, but she does not look like she was on the Mayflower. If I can be so bold is to say something stunningly obvious. His children do not look exactly like Tiffany Trump, shall we say, or Ivanka Trump, shall we say. This bother doesn't bother me, but this bothers the Nick Fuentes of the world who seem to have growing influence in the Republican Party. So I think J.T. vance has some. The other problem J.D. vance has, he doesn't seem like a true alpha male. He didn't marry a model like some leading politicians today. He doesn't have a little Stepford wife. He doesn't have a wife who just looks pretty. He married someone who by all accounts is his equal if not superior intellectually in terms of education, income producing abilities. That's not the trad wife a lot of Republicans are looking for, rightly or wrongly. So I think that J.D. vance is very much vulnerable to a lot of other voices in the Republican Party and it could be a true outsider like a Tucker Carlson. Now before you think, well, TJ's are being a political hack. He's saying that AOC could clearly win. No, I'm not saying that either. I don't think AOC is the strongest candidate that the Democrats could offer, in part because of the nature of our Electoral College, the, the vast amount of power, disproportional power, small rural states that are controlled by conservatives have in America. If you look at Ezra Klein's analysis, some of the books he's written, and other political scientists, you'll note that the actual political makeup of America and presidential elections is such that a Democrat essentially has to win about 53% of the vote, the popular vote, in order to win the Electoral College. It's possible a few things could be skewed weirdly in a state here or there. But to really comfortably win, the Democrat needs about 53% to get because of the way electoral votes are distributed disproportionately in favor of smaller, more conservative rural states and districts. Which in my mind means that if you are a Democrat and you want to become president, yes, you've basically got to win all the liberal progressive votes. If there are even people outside of Manhattan who considered themselves a part of the left, yeah, you got to get all those votes. You got to get all the moderate votes. But you have to get at least 3% of voters in America who consider themselves more conservative than dead center. 3% of voters who are to the right of center. You have to win if you want to be a Democrat and get elected. I don't see how someone like AOC can convince 3% of America who are right of center to vote for her because she's many, many things. She is not to the right of center. So I think what we're seeing now is a reflection of of high name id. She is in the media a lot, in part because Fox News Channel and conservatives and Breitbart and Tucker Carlson, they love to talk about her. They love a new boogey woman. Especially now that Congresswoman Pelosi, former Speaker Pelosi, is drifting off to the politician old folks home. There has to be a new boogeyman. In this case, boogey woman. And AOC fits the bill for many reasons. She's not afraid to be wildly provocative and her criticism of conservatives, number one. Number two might not be politically correct to say, but I'm going to go ahead and say it. Fox News Channel. Other conservative media outlets love putting her on because she's really good looking. It's eye candy. Every time they put her face on Fox News, it attracts eyeballs. Because let's face it, if you had a choice between looking at Mitch McConnell and his turtleneck, and I don't mean the shirt versus AOC, who are you going to want to look at for a three minute news story on that? I think there is broad bipartisan agreement in America. I'm T.J. walker.