AOC Tops 2028 New Hampshire Poll With Two Years to Spare

A new University of New Hampshire survey puts Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 22 percent among likely Democratic primary voters — an early but attention-grabbing number in the state that votes first.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads a University of New Hampshire poll of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates with 22 percent support.
The survey measured likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, the traditional first primary state.
The poll arrives more than two years before any primary vote, making it a mood reading rather than a reliable predictor.
Ocasio-Cortez has not announced a presidential run and the Democratic field for 2028 remains wide open.
The result lands as the party continues to sort through its identity and direction following the 2024 election cycle.

It is July 2026, no one has filed paperwork, and the New Hampshire snow is still months away — but the 2028 Democratic presidential conversation has already produced its first clear headline number. A University of New Hampshire poll released this week puts Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 22 percent among likely Democratic primary voters in the state, placing her ahead of a field that, for now, exists mostly in cable-news speculation and editorial-board what-ifs.

The survey is the kind of number that travels fast on social media and lands slower in actual political strategy rooms. Early state polls taken this far from a primary have a well-documented record of measuring name recognition and ambient enthusiasm rather than durable support — but in a party still actively searching for its post-2024 footing, a 22-point showing in the first primary state is not nothing.

Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman who has become one of the most recognizable figures in Democratic politics, has given no public indication she is building a presidential operation. Her team has not commented on the poll. The Democratic field itself remains undefined — a list of names floated on Sunday shows rather than a roster of declared candidates.

New Hampshire Democrats will hold their primary early in the 2028 cycle under current scheduling, giving the state its familiar outsized role in sorting a crowded field. Whether the field that eventually forms resembles the one being sketched in July 2026 is a question that will take considerably longer to answer. The next University of New Hampshire survey is already on the calendar.