Days after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman elected to Congress, the New York City bartender and Democratic socialist was in Washington praising hundreds of climate activists staging a sit-in at Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office.

“I just want to let you all know how proud I am of each and every single one of you,” Ocasio-Cortez told protesters. She echoed demands that House Democrats move further to the left on climate policy, a high-profile challenge to Pelosi, a fellow Democrat and the powerful party leader.

In the eight years since, Ocasio-Cortez has been the one to shift tactics—in ways that would have once seemed unthinkable for the firebrand leftist. The result is a political transformation reflecting real-world lessons about how to win in Washington.

The 37-year-old lawmaker has tempered her combative style, cozied up to establishment Democrats and distanced herself from some extreme positions pushed by other Democratic socialists—such as abolishing prisons and the police.

Whether or not Ocasio-Cortez decides to run for president in 2028—a much-talked-about possibility she says she is considering—she has tried to broaden the progressive base to include voters whose views don’t traditionally align with the far left, including Black voters and segments of MAHA.

Ocasio-Cortez speaking to hundreds of climate activists on the north side of the White House in June 2021.

Yet her evolving strategy risks alienating progressive and far-left voters she needs in any bid for higher office, whether the Senate or the White House.

Ocasio-Cortez’s more inclusive approach, viewed skeptically by colleagues wary of her Democratic socialist credentials, coincides with a growing embrace of a populist economic agenda among Americans in both parties, according to a Wall Street Journal poll in September.

“I personally don’t think that we need to water down on our policy and our agenda and our principles,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview. “But I do think that we can expand and evolve in the way that we talk to people, and the way that we include people and shift away from a culture of exclusion.”

To that end, Ocasio-Cortez has sought to become a team player. In the past, she backed primary challenges to Democratic incumbents. She now contributes to the party committee that boosts campaigns of vulnerable lawmakers, including those who in the past have criticized her far-left ideas. Ahead of the midterm election, she has so far brought in more than $37 million, making her a top Democratic fundraiser, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Even Pelosi, who is ending her last term in office, has come around. When asked at a Politico event this summer about Ocasio-Cortez’s tenure in the House, Pelosi denied any initial tensions. She described Ocasio-Cortez these days as “a joy to work with.”

Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, right, speaking with Ocasio-Cortez at the Capitol in 2022. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) As Ocasio-Cortez expands her appeal, she faces potential vulnerability from her home turf on the far left, which gained national attention this year with a series of Democratic primary wins.

Some in the Democratic Socialists of America movement want to dismantle the Democratic Party altogether, saying it is beholden to campaign donors who oppose change. They are critical of Ocasio-Cortez’s willingness to support Democratic leaders, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), who said he doesn’t support the DSA agenda.

“I liked her when she first showed up and was a little more in your face,” said Megan Romer, a national co-chair of the DSA. Yet even Romer, who said Ocasio-Cortez should use her influence to push harder for progressive policies, acknowledged it was difficult “to keep us happy and also a whole bunch of people happy” while trying to pass legislation.

Ocasio-Cortez continues to champion many causes of the progressive movement, such as the push for a single-payer national health insurance system. “If we are going to pass Medicare for All, we have to expand the coalition,” she said. “If we want to guarantee healthcare in America, we need to grow our tent. Period.”

Medicare for All, while still a politically charged proposal among Democrats, has become more popular with Americans during her time in office, polls show. Ocasio-Cortez frequently talks in interviews and on social media about how it would lower costs and provide guaranteed healthcare.

She has backed progressive outsider candidates in open-seat primaries, including former public-health official Abdul El-Sayed, who is now the Democratic candidate in Michigan’s hotly contested Senate race. In September, Ocasio-Cortez lent her support to state Rep. Angie Nixon, a progressive who beat a well-funded, party-backed candidate in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary. Nixon, who joined DSA this year, is waging another underdog campaign in red-state Florida against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody.

At the same time, Ocasio-Cortez has worked with Republicans on legislation with broad populist appeal, including a bill to ban lawmakers from trading stocks. She made friends with Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, a stalwart Trump supporter who calls her a buddy and a “friendly neighborhood Marxist.”

Ocasio-Cortez fist-bumping Rep. Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.) in support of legislation to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks. (jonathan ernst/Reuters) As she spoke recently at the Capitol with the Journal, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R., Texas) walked over to pat her shoulder and say hello.

Other Republicans, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, aren’t as collegial. “Her approach to becoming more visible and, frankly, trying to become more likable to the middle of the country is the same thing we say when we talk about wolves in sheep’s clothing, you can’t trust them,” said Scott, who is leading the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm.

Proposals such as Medicare for All, he said, are “just the kind of radical, dangerous policy that leads to the end of America as we know it.”

Ocasio-Cortez after winning her first Democratic Party primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District in 2018; campaign manager Saikat Chakrabarti, right. (Bebeto Matthews/AP) Learning the ropes Ocasio-Cortez was 28 when she won the 2018 Democratic primary, beating former Rep. Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent and one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants. At 29, she won her first race for Congress, joining with progressive allies on Capitol Hill—Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan—a group that became known as the “Squad.”

Ocasio-Cortez and her allies worked to pull the Democratic caucus leftward. She refused to pay her dues to the House Democrats’ campaign arm and supported like-minded progressives in races to unseat incumbent Democrats.

From left, Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Ocasio-Cortez speaking at a 2019 news conference. (erin scott/Reuters) In 2024, she backed President Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris in their presidential bids. That put her at odds with some on the left who thought she should have been more critical of the administration’s response to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

After the election, Ocasio-Cortez took a hit from her own party. She was grilled by members of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, including a scolding by Rep. Henry Cuellar, a centrist Democrat from Texas she had tried twice to oust. Cuellar told her that a member of Democratic leadership shouldn’t be campaigning against fellow party members, said people familiar with the exchange.

Ocasio-Cortez wanted a seat as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and said she would stop campaigning against colleagues, the people familiar said. She still failed to get the position, in part because Pelosi had built support for an opponent.

Ocasio-Cortez speaking at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (Al Drago/Bloomberg News) That same day, Ocasio-Cortez called Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, and promised to contribute more than her recommended dues of $280,000, according to people familiar with the matter. Since then, Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t supported any challengers to House incumbents.

Drew Hammill, a former top aide to Pelosi, said Ocasio-Cortez learned the importance of building coalitions and how to do it. “There’s a way to be constructive and progressive and a way to be divisive and come across to your colleagues as self-serving,” he said. “She took a number of steps in the first weeks, months, years and soon found how things worked.”

This year, Ocasio-Cortez’s unwillingness to back primary candidates running against Democratic House incumbents frustrated some on the far left who wanted her to team up with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, another Democratic socialist. He successfully endorsed a slate of DSA and progressive candidates in New York’s primaries.

At least five Democratic socialists are expected to join Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, another Democratic socialist, in Congress next year. El-Sayed in Michigan and former state Senate president Troy Jackson in Maine are progressive, Democratic nominees in two competitive Senate races. Those matchups will test a longstanding belief that candidates must be moderates to win tough races. Ocasio-Cortez transferred $1 million to boost El-Sayed’s campaign, according to her team.

The national DSA platform calls for abolishing police, prisons and the Senate, defunding the Defense Department, granting amnesty to immigrants in the U.S. illegally and public ownership of major corporations and essential industries—positions Ocasio-Cortez has said she doesn’t support.

She has also tried to move the progressive movement past some of its more politically off-putting rhetoric. In an ABC TV interview, Ocasio-Cortez said voters should judge progressive midterm candidates based on what they are now campaigning on, not what they were saying during the pandemic shutdowns and protests of 2020.

From left, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Ocasio-Cortez appearing on behalf of Zohran Mamdani during his successful mayoral campaign last year. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg News) “Woke 1.0 was crazy,” Ocasio-Cortez said, quoting a far-left New York City councilman and laughing.

This summer, a DSA group that describes itself as Marxist-Leninist-Maoist said Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t a socialist but “an opportunist dilettante, devoid of any principles whatsoever.”Cara Tobe, a spokeswoman for the national DSA, played down the criticism. “They are a minuscule group in the organization and have little to no ability to make decisions on behalf of either the national or local leadership,” she said.

Many on the left are skeptical that a Democratic socialist would be accepted by establishment Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez is “trying to be in the Democratic circle, but the truth is, she never will be, and it’s pointless to try,” said Alexander Greene, a college student and member of the Washington, D.C., DSA chapter. Because of the DSA label, no amount of moderating will appease establishment Democrats, he said, and “trying to do that is just kind of compromising yourself.”

Ocasio-Cortez leaving a news conference in March. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA Press) Presidential bearings In August, Ocasio-Cortez told her nearly 10 million Instagram followers that she decided to freeze her eggs, an announcement stoking speculation that she was preparing for the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries.

“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

She has been ranked among the party’s top presidential primary contenders, alongside Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Ocasio-Cortez, who also is weighing a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his New York Senate seat, is flattered though skeptical of polls showing her leading, said a person familiar with her thinking.

Ocasio-Cortez is up for re-election in November in a New York City district she won by close to 40 percentage points two years ago, a seat she could hold for the foreseeable future.

The Journal poll in September found that 72% of Democratic voters had a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez but only 26% of independent voters and 3% of Republicans did. The poll also found voters of all parties strongly supported such progressive ideas as capping the cost of prescription drugs, child care and credit-card interest rates, policies favored by Ocasio-Cortez.

For now, Ocasio-Cortez is the front-runner to lead the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Her mentor, Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders, 85, has signaled he won’t run again for president. She joined Sanders at stops during his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour after Trump’s return to office. Their appearances further fueled speculation about her inheriting the grassroots movement behind Sanders’s two presidential campaigns.

Sanders’s 2020 presidential primary campaign offered Ocasio-Cortez another lesson: His promising bid failed to entice a wide enough swath of voters before the moderate Democratic candidates dropped out and united behind Biden.

Ocasio-Cortez taking a selfie with supporters in Los Angeles last year. (Jae C. Hong/AP) Ocasio-Cortez has spent time meeting with Black voters in the South, a powerful Democratic faction, but one that progressives, including Sanders during his presidential bids, have struggled to win over. In September, she spoke at the National Baptist Convention, one of the largest African-American religious conventions in the U.S.

Zen Honeycutt, the head of the group Moms Across America, had a video call with Ocasio-Cortez in July, at the congresswoman’s request. Honeycutt had supported Trump in 2024 for his alignment with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But she said she was disappointed by the Trump administration’s decision to provide protections for the company that makes glyphosate, a key ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.

She found common ground with Ocasio-Cortez on restricting glyphosate and new data centers, she said, and expanding access to healthy food.

“While I personally think some of her more controversial far-left views don’t sit well with most moms out there, I think we can all agree that healthy nutrient-dense food is something everyone can get behind,” Honeycutt said.

Ocasio-Cortez said Make America Healthy Again activists aren’t so far from progressives on some issues. “To be honest, especially when it comes to things like the MAHA movement,” she said, “a lot of it is just top versus bottom, and corruption is something that transcends party.”

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R., N.Y.) was one who never thought she could work with Ocasio-Cortez. Not in “a million years,” she said. But the two lawmakers found they agreed on maternal healthcare issues.

“My mother fled a communist country, so the things that she says, I find a little offensive,” Malliotakis said. Even so, “We were actually able to work together on legislation and get it across the finish line in committee unanimously, which was great,” she said.