Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads the 2028 Democratic presidential primary field in New Hampshire, but a new national poll shows her favorability rating deep in negative territory, a gap that should worry any progressive who thinks star power alone wins general elections.
A CNN/SSRS poll released Thursday put Ocasio-Cortez's national favorable rating at just 26%, against an unfavorable rating of 36%, a net-negative spread of ten points. The numbers represent a slide from January, when she sat at 27% favorable and 32% unfavorable. In six months, her negatives grew faster than her positives, widening the gap from five points to ten. The New York Post reported the full demographic breakdown, and the picture it paints is bleak for a would-be national candidate.
Among voters aged 18 to 34, the cohort that once powered her rise, only 28% view her favorably. Among independents, the voters who decide general elections, that figure drops to 22%. She pulls just 25% among men and 27% among women. Among white voters overall, she sits at 25%, though white college graduates give her a somewhat higher 36%.
Even inside her own party, the ceiling is visible. Fifty-six percent of Democrats view her favorably, and 63% of self-described liberals do. Those are decent numbers within the base, but they mean roughly four in ten Democrats either don't like her or don't know enough to say. For a figure who has dominated progressive media since 2018, that lack of consolidation is notable.
Days before the CNN poll dropped, the University of New Hampshire released its own survey of the 2028 Democratic presidential primary in the state. Ocasio-Cortez led the field at 22%, edging former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at 21%. Sen. Mark Kelly trailed at 9%.
That one-point margin is thin, but the trendline has moved in her direction. She polled at 14% in the same UNH survey in October 2025 and 15% in February. The jump to 22% suggests she is consolidating the progressive lane in a state where Sen. Bernie Sanders, her political mentor, won the Democratic primary in both 2016 and 2020.
Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, framed the dynamic in branding terms.
"She's a brand. She's far more than a House member."
Scala added a comparison that captures the opportunity and the risk: "Who knows what her plans are, but right now she's set up to be the successor to Bernie Sanders." Sanders won New Hampshire twice and lost the nomination both times. Being his successor is not the same as being the nominee, let alone a viable general-election candidate.
Vice President JD Vance has already identified Ocasio-Cortez as the likely 2028 Democratic standard-bearer, and she welcomed the prospect rather than deflecting it. That willingness to lean into the fight tells you something about where she sees herself headed.
A Morning Consult national poll released last week told a different story from the New Hampshire numbers. Former Vice President Kamala Harris led the 2028 Democratic field at 26%, followed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 20% and Buttigieg at 10%. Ocasio-Cortez trailed all three; the poll did not specify her exact share.
The gap between leading a single early-state primary and competing nationally is enormous, and the CNN favorability data helps explain why. A candidate who starts with 26% national favorability and 36% unfavorability has to persuade a large share of the country to change its mind, not just rally the faithful.
Ocasio-Cortez has spent months building the kind of national infrastructure that signals serious ambition. She has made high-profile stops across the country, testing her message beyond her deep-blue New York congressional district.
The CNN/SSRS poll also tested favorability for the broader political brands. The Republican Party registered 31% favorable. The Democratic Party came in at 30%. The Democratic Socialists of America, the organization most closely associated with Ocasio-Cortez's political identity, managed just 18%.
That 18% figure sits well below either major party and well below Ocasio-Cortez's own 26%. The DSA label is a drag, not a lift. And the organization's platform includes proposals, abolishing the U.S. Senate and defunding the Pentagon, that sit far outside the mainstream. Ocasio-Cortez herself has refused to reject the Senate-abolition push, calling parts of the institution a product of Jim Crow.
Yet the CNN poll found that roughly one-third of Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters now identify as democratic socialists. The movement is growing inside the party even as the label repels the broader electorate. DSA-backed candidates have scored wins in New York, Colorado, and other states. DSA leaders have openly touted Ocasio-Cortez for 2028 as their candidates topple Democratic incumbents in primaries.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a political ally of Ocasio-Cortez, carries his own underwater numbers in the same CNN poll: 30% favorable, 35% unfavorable. The pattern holds. Progressive stars generate intense loyalty from a slice of the electorate and broad skepticism from the rest.
Even the New Hampshire lead comes with a structural asterisk. A Democratic National Committee panel voted late last month to give South Carolina, with its more racially diverse electorate, the first spot in the 2028 Democratic primary calendar. New Hampshire has played an outsized role in the nominating process for decades, but the party is actively working to diminish that role.
If South Carolina goes first, the early-state advantage that boosted Sanders in 2016 and 2020 may not carry the same weight for his ideological heir. Ocasio-Cortez's strongest early showing would come in a state that no longer sets the tone for the race.
Meanwhile, the 36-year-old congresswoman is also reportedly weighing whether to challenge 75-year-old Sen. Charles Schumer in a 2028 primary. That decision could clarify her ambitions, or split her attention between two enormous fights. She has already built alliances with Sanders in places like Michigan, rallying behind far-left candidates as the Democratic primary landscape fractures.
Strip away the early-state excitement and the progressive energy, and the core problem is arithmetic. A candidate who holds 22% favorability among independents cannot win a general election in a closely divided country. Independents decided the last several presidential races. They are not a demographic any serious candidate can write off.
Ocasio-Cortez's numbers among men (25%) and women (27%) show no gender-gap advantage of the kind Democrats typically rely on. Her 28% favorability among young voters, once her strongest cohort, suggests the cultural moment that made her a social-media phenomenon in 2018 has not translated into durable, broad-based support eight years later.
Democrats face a familiar trap. The candidates who excite the activist base enough to win primaries are often the ones who repel the middle of the electorate in November. Ocasio-Cortez's polling profile, strong with liberals, weak with everyone else, is the textbook version of that problem.
She may be a brand, as Professor Scala says. But brands that only 26% of the country likes don't usually make it to the White House.
