Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declined to endorse democratic socialist Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin governor's race, and used the moment to walk back years of "defund the police" rhetoric she once championed.
Ocasio-Cortez appeared on ABC News's "This Week" on Sunday and told host Jonathan Karl she has not endorsed in the Wisconsin contest. She framed the decision as a matter of priorities, telling The Hill's Ashleigh Fields that her focus lies elsewhere.
The New York Democrat's refusal to back Hong is notable because both women share a democratic-socialist label, and because Hong's candidacy has become a test case for how far left the Democratic Party's base will go in statewide races. Sen. Bernie Sanders and the national branch of the Democratic Socialists of America have also declined to endorse Hong.
Ocasio-Cortez offered a careful, almost clinical explanation for staying out of the Wisconsin primary. She told Karl that gubernatorial contests tend to get "nationalized" but that "all politics are local."
"I haven't endorsed in that race. My focus has been in winning back the Congress, winning back the House and positioning ourselves to have the best chance possible to win the Senate."
That framing reveals a political calculation. Ocasio-Cortez is positioning herself as a party-builder focused on Congress, not as a standard-bearer for the democratic-socialist wing. She has refused to rule out a 2028 presidential bid while pitching herself as "working class, not far left", and endorsing a candidate with Hong's baggage would cut against that rebranding effort.
Hong, a Wisconsin state legislator seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, has a record that reads like a progressive wish list from 2020. In previous years she shared statements supporting the abolition of prisons, defunding the police, and, in a detail the article notes without elaboration, "canceling Thanksgiving." Hong now says her views have shifted, though no direct quotes from Hong explaining that shift appear in the reporting.
Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged the distance Hong has tried to put between herself and those positions. "She's moved away from it," the congresswoman said.
Karl pressed Ocasio-Cortez on where she stands today on defunding the police, a slogan she once amplified. Her answer was a study in political retreat dressed up as policy reflection.
"I think that during this time and... especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the overtone window. We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns, and I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place, and I actually think that the discussions... that were had in that time were quite fruitful."
Read that again. Ocasio-Cortez characterized the push to strip funding from police departments as part of a broad, COVID-era brainstorm, "entertaining any and every policy", rather than the focused ideological demand it was at the time. She then conceded that the rhetoric from that period "is not rhetoric that we would use today."
That concession matters. For years, Republican candidates tied Democrats to the "defund" slogan, and Democrats lost seats in 2020 partly because of it. Recent polling has placed Ocasio-Cortez atop the 2028 Democratic presidential field, which gives her every incentive to sand down the sharpest edges of her record.
She added a line about shared goals on crime that could have come from any moderate Democrat's talking points:
"I think that when we talk about crime today, it's fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down, right? And I think that we all share the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible."
Ocasio-Cortez is not alone in declining to back Hong. Sanders, the most prominent democratic socialist in American politics, has also withheld his endorsement. So has the national branch of the Democratic Socialists of America. The reporting does not include formal statements from either Sanders or the DSA explaining why.
The pattern is hard to miss. When three of the most visible figures and organizations on the democratic-socialist left all refuse to endorse the democratic-socialist candidate in a major governor's race, the message is that they view Hong as a liability, or at minimum, not worth the political cost of association.
That reluctance tracks with a broader shift inside the Democratic Party. Moderate Democrats have launched a $15 million campaign aimed at stopping democratic socialists before 2028, a sign that the intra-party fight over the far-left brand is intensifying, not cooling.
Ocasio-Cortez closed her remarks on the Wisconsin race with a diplomatic line that said nothing while saying everything about her desire to stay uninvolved:
"And I'm grateful that these candidates have the opportunity to present who they are to their electorate and what they're campaigning on in this moment."
That is the sound of a politician who wants no fingerprints on whatever happens next in Wisconsin.
Hong's prior statements, supporting prison abolition, police defunding, and canceling Thanksgiving, are the kind of positions that energize progressive activists in deep-blue districts but repel general-election voters in a purple state like Wisconsin. The fact that Hong herself now says her views have changed does not erase the record. It just confirms that the record is a problem.
Ocasio-Cortez's handling of the question followed the same logic. She did not defend "defund the police." She did not defend Hong's old positions. She described the entire era as an unusual moment when people were willing to "entertain any and every policy", as if the slogan were a brainstorming exercise rather than a movement that led multiple city councils to slash police budgets.
And she acknowledged, without quite saying so directly, that the politics have moved against her. The rhetoric from the COVID era, she said, "is not rhetoric that we would use today." Ocasio-Cortez has previously refused to reject calls to abolish the Senate, framing parts of the institution as rooted in Jim Crow, another position that plays well on social media and poorly in swing states.
What remains unanswered is whether Ocasio-Cortez's retreat from "defund" is a genuine change of mind or a repositioning for a national campaign. She did not say the policy was wrong. She said the rhetoric was wrong. There is a difference, and voters in 2028 will be entitled to ask which one she means.
When a politician tells you the slogan was the problem, not the policy, keep your hand on your wallet.
