The Democratic Socialists of America are quietly building a 2028 blueprint that would put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the presidential race and a 28-year-old Brooklyn councilman in Chuck Schumer's Senate seat, a plan that reveals just how far left the party's activist base wants to drag the Democratic ticket.
Brooklyn City Councilman Chi Ossé traveled to Buffalo and Kingston, New York, this week, stopping at a DSA-organized "Take Our Power Back" event at Kingston's Unicorn Bar on Tuesday. Multiple DSA sources confirmed to the New York Post that the party has been holding ongoing internal talks about running Ossé against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose term expires in 2028. Separately, DSA figures confirmed the organization is openly lobbying Ocasio-Cortez to seek the presidency.
Neither Ossé, Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer, nor the DSA returned the Post's requests for comment. But Ossé did not deny a possible Senate run when asked by Hell Gate, a DSA-friendly outlet that first reported on his Kingston appearance. His non-denial carried its own message.
At the Kingston event, Ossé worked the room at a private happy hour before delivering his pitch to the crowd. He pushed for government-run electricity and framed the socialist movement as urgent.
"I think the era of wait-your-turn politics is over. The time for us, the socialists, is right now."
When Hell Gate pressed him on a Senate challenge, Ossé offered a careful but pointed response:
"I don't believe that our current Democratic leadership is standing up to the plate. A lot of people are calling for change."
Hudson Valley State Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, a Mid-Hudson DSA chapter member who also spoke at the event, personally called out Schumer for what she described as his ties to the tech industry.
"We really need socialists leading the fight against big tech because I don't trust moderate Democrats to do it."
Shrestha went further on the AOC question, telling Hell Gate flatly that a presidential bid is more than speculation.
"I think it's not even a rumor. DSA is openly trying to convince AOC that she should run."
She acknowledged the personal cost, noting that Ocasio-Cortez "would be ruining her personal life forever" and that "it's not a decision to be taken lightly." AOC reportedly broke up with fiancé Riley Roberts over her political ambitions, and announced on national television last month that she was freezing her eggs, details that, taken together, suggest a woman clearing the decks for something bigger than a House seat.
Ossé is 28 years old and serving his second term on the New York City Council. His background is not exactly the working-class origin story the socialist brand promises. He attended Friends Seminary, a private school in Manhattan's East Village. His father is an entertainment lawyer who represented Jay-Z. His grandfather is a Grammy Award-winning record producer. Ossé has hobnobbed with rapper Ice Spice and actress Jemima Kirke at the Met Gala.
His political record is a catalog of progressive provocation. He called Israel a "terror state." In 2021, he declared that "a cis white man should not be the next speaker of the council." He once said a landscaping firm with an Italian name was a "red flag" and bragged about knocking over a "Jesus worshipper" in the subway.
Ossé also championed New York City's broker's fee ban, a policy the Post linked to a reported 15 percent overnight jump in rents. And in May, he posted on X: "Woke 1 was crazyyyy," a phrase Ocasio-Cortez herself echoed last month when she told a national audience that lockdown-era rhetoric "is not rhetoric that we would use today."
Both moves suggest an effort to soften prior positions for a broader electorate. Whether voters outside deep-blue Brooklyn would buy the makeover is another question entirely.
Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant who has helped run several winning statewide campaigns, told the Post that Ossé's statewide prospects are bleak. His assessment was blunt.
"He's a stone-cold antisemite, he won't do well with the Jews, they'll raise money against him. So will other people in business who don't think he's very good. He's a bigot."
Sheinkopf added that "statewide races are tough, they're entirely different than working in the city." He described Ossé's upstate tour as a trial balloon: "You throw it up in the air and if nobody shoots it down, you know you have some possibilities. That's what he's doing."
Sheinkopf's characterization is his own, the antisemitism and bigotry labels are allegations from a named Democratic source, not established conclusions. But the underlying record Sheinkopf points to, Ossé's "terror state" remarks about Israel, his comment about an Italian-named business being a "red flag", is public and documented.
A Senate run would not be Ossé's first attempt to leap from the City Council to Congress. Last year, he launched a primary challenge against House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a move that drew opposition from an unexpected corner: his own political allies.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a DSA-aligned figure, personally urged Ossé to drop the bid, warning that the primary fight could derail Mamdani's first-year mayoral agenda. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Mamdani even disinvited Ossé from his election night victory party over the disagreement. Ossé ultimately abandoned the race.
Ocasio-Cortez also distanced herself from the Jeffries challenge. She told reporters at the time: "I certainly don't think a primary challenge to the leader is a good idea right now." Mamdani echoed that caution, saying he believed "there are many ways right here in New York City to both deliver on an affordability agenda and take on the authoritarian administration in the White House."
Jeffries himself dismissed the challenge. When asked about it, he replied: "If you ask me a serious question, I'll give you a serious answer. And you know that's not a serious question based on everything coming out of Brooklyn."
The Washington Examiner noted at the time that Ossé's bid reflected broader frustration within the Democratic left over the party's direction, frustration that has clearly not faded.
Schumer's vulnerability is not just a DSA fantasy. Retirement rumors have followed the Senate Minority Leader, and his own caucus has shown cracks. During a recent government shutdown fight, eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus broke with Schumer's position and voted to begin reopening the government. Rep. Ro Khanna publicly called for Schumer's ouster as minority leader afterward.
Khanna's criticism was direct, as Fox News reported: "If you can't lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?"
That kind of intra-party dissatisfaction is exactly the opening the DSA hopes to exploit. A July poll cited in Breitbart's reporting showed Schumer at just 50 percent favorability among New York Democrats, compared to 75 percent for AOC and 68 percent for Mamdani. Jeffries sat at 58 percent. In a party whose activist energy runs well to the left of its leadership, those numbers tell a story about where the grassroots want to go.
For the DSA's 2028 vision to materialize, several things would need to happen at once. Ocasio-Cortez would have to agree to a presidential run, a decision Shrestha acknowledged would upend her personal life. Ossé would need to prove he can win votes outside New York City, something Sheinkopf flatly doubts. And Schumer would need to either retire or look weak enough to challenge, a scenario that retirement rumors and caucus fractures make more plausible than it was two years ago.
None of this is guaranteed. But the DSA is no longer a fringe organization content to elect city councilmembers. It already installed Mamdani in the mayor's office. It already pushed Ossé into a congressional primary against one of the most powerful Democrats in the House. Now it is openly discussing a Senate seat and the presidency.
The pattern is clear: test, escalate, repeat. Ossé's upstate tour is the test. Whether anyone in the Democratic establishment has the will to push back is the question that matters.
When a party's activist wing starts measuring the drapes in the Oval Office for a 28-year-old city councilman's ally, the establishment has a problem, and pretending otherwise only makes it worse.
