Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's potential run for president has exposed long-simmering divisions within the Democratic Socialists of America.

Why it matters: The socialism movement's leaders are increasingly at odds over who should speak for them, what policies they stand for — and whether to support AOC, whom some dismiss as more establishment than insurgent.

🤨 Driving the news: Political success brings scrutiny, and some DSA members and strategists who work with the group don't think its current leadership is ready for prime time ahead of the 2026 midterms and the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.

• "We're not in a book club anymore," said one strategist who works with the DSA. "You could be growing this organization by pointing to AOC, Bernie [Sanders], [Zohran] Mamdani — and instead they are going on cable news talking about abolishing the Senate, Fidel Castro and other weird stuff. It's a blown opportunity."
• "The ways that we operated in the past are now making headlines in ways that we didn't expect," Priscilla Yeverino, the DSA's communications director, acknowledged in an interview with Axios.
• "Our leaders aren't politicians," Yeverino added. "They're working-class people and new to doing media. It's been a learning experience, and they are listening to our members' feedback."

The DSA's critics point to several unforced errors made just when the group has been having more success in primaries than it's ever had:

1. 😮 In July, the national DSA published a "Workers Deserve More" platform that laid out the group's political vision, including several controversial proposals such as abolishing the Senate, defunding the Department of Defense, and working toward "fully abolishing the police and prison system."

• Many DSA and DSA-friendly politicians were caught off-guard by the new agenda, and several — including AOC — quickly distanced themselves from the group.

2. 🎙️ Megan Romer, a national DSA co-chair, had trouble articulating her organization's positions in a podcast interview with the New Yorker's David Remnick.

• When Romer dodged a question on what she meant by "taxing the hell" out of the rich and powerful, Remnick pushed: "If you're the co-chair of the DSA, shouldn't you be more specific than 'taxing the hell' out of something? What exactly do you mean?"
• Romer appeared to be caught off guard and replied, "That's a good question" before trying to answer further.
• When Remnick asked if Romer would have her concerns about Israel and Gaza satisfied with the 2000 Camp David Summit proposal, Romer said: "I need to look at what the actual specifics there were, I don't know them off the top of my head."

3. 🇨🇺 In August, the national DSA issued a statement commemorating the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and condemning the Trump administration's "genocide" of the Cuban people.

• "Fidel was an organizer, a fighter, and endures as a stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination for the Global South," the DSA wrote.
• Ashik Siddique, the other national DSA co-chair, then struggled to defend the Castro regime in an interview with CNN.

The intrigue: AOC's potential presidential campaign has also prompted more drama within the DSA.

• She was the focus of internal fights this summer when the national DSA voted to keep more control of the group's 2028 endorsement process, which some local chapters saw as an attempt to stop a quick AOC endorsement.
• 🗽 The New York City DSA chapter protested the national group's move, with DSA NYC co-chair Gustavo Gordillo posting that "DSA's national leadership … just voted to overturn our convention."

AOC also has distanced herself from the national DSA group.

• Asked by ABC about some of the national DSA's proposals, Ocasio-Cortez made clear she wasn't a member of the national group — only the chapter in her native New York City.

Zoom in: The DSA also includes ideologues who likely will fuel further rifts within the group going into 2028.

• The DSA's Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Caucus, for example, posted a letter recently saying it "rejects any effort to present [AOC] as the future presidential standard-bearer for DSA, or for the broader socialist movement."
• The group continued: "AOC's record demonstrates a consistent pattern of opportunism."

Read more.

— Alex Thompson, Holly Otterbein

A look at what potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders are up to:

• 🙅 Former Vice President Kamala Harris was snubbed by red-state Democrats — again. Rob Sand and Josh Turek, candidates for governor and Senate in Iowa, said that she shouldn't campaign for them. Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola distanced herself from the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee earlier this month.
• AOC is shaking up her team ahead of her 2028 decision, we scooped Friday. The changes include campaign manager and senior adviser Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben departing and longtime aide Fiorella Bini taking over as interim campaign manager this month. The moves have coincided with the expansion of the portfolio of AOC's chief of staff, Mike Casca.
• 🏠 California Gov. Gavin Newsom put his Sacramento home on the market for $7.5 million — and said he wasn't aware of the size of its 5,000-bottle wine cellar. He also declined to guarantee that President Trump's tariffs on Canada would be reversed under a Democratic administration, the latest sign of economic protectionism's political staying power.
• Newsom is visiting South Carolina, the first-in-the-nation primary state, along with North Carolina and Alabama this week.
• 🤓 Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said on "Morning Joe" that "this whole DSA, progressive stuff — that is like the field of nerds."
• 🏦 Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker posted a striking black-and-white video of himself that said he was "Governor-maxxing" — a play on slang that means optimizing — and touted that his state was awarded its 11th credit rating upgrade in recent years.
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro got kudos from North America's Building Trades Unions for his approach to AI data centers. A renowned pollster found him leading his GOP opponent this year by 16 points, and Shapiro vowed that the Eagles' future stadium will stay in Philadelphia. (Pritzker hasn't been so lucky with the Chicago Bears as of yet.)
• Shapiro also traded barbs with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the wake of the announcement by Shapiro's administration that there were two "measles-associated" deaths in Pennsylvania.
• 👎 New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff condemned controversial left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic nominee for the Senate.
• 🎤 Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is scheduled to deliver the headline speech at the New Hampshire AFL-CIO's Labor Day Breakfast on Sept. 7.
• Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also is traveling to the Granite State. He'll give the keynote talk at the state Democrats' Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner on Oct. 3. On Saturday, he's headed to Ohio for a Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Day event.
• Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock announced his support for a statewide data center moratorium — making him the third potential Democratic presidential contender to suggest a pause of some kind.

🫵 Pritzker likes to poke fun at himself as a means of fending off political attacks.

• When he ran for Illinois governor in 2018, some insiders thought his stocky frame would be a campaign issue. He took it head-on, naming his first commercial "Think Big."
• "I've been thinking big since the very beginning," Pritzker said in the ad, grinning as photos of himself as a chubby kid flashed on the screen.
• 💡 A Chicago Tribune columnist wrote at the time that the spot minimized a vulnerability by "saying, in effect: 'Yes, I know I'm overweight, let's get past that, shall we?'"

It's a self-deprecating strategy that Pritzker deploys often. During a swing through New Hampshire in 2022, he ticked off the reasons he's a somewhat unusual Democratic candidate:

• "Look, I'm a Ukrainian American," he said to applause. "I haven't finished the list yet, and it gets worse from here.
• "… A Ukrainian American Jewish Democratic billionaire businessman. That's not exactly the archetype that the party was looking for to run for governor."
• He returned to the well at this year's Gridiron dinner, where he lampooned his recent weight loss: "I'm the guy who put the 'gov' in 'Wegovy'!"