Jon Ossoff pulls level with AOC on 2028 presidential prediction market as race heats up

Jon Ossoff pulls level with AOC on 2028 presidential prediction market as race heats up Georgia senator who made fun of President Donald Trump’s relationship with his aid Natalie Harp, drawing an angry reaction from the White House, is being tipped as his potential successor in the Oval Office - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff has surged level with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the race to find the Democratic Party’s next presidential nominee, according to Coinbase’s live prediction odds. Ossoff and Ocasio-Cortez were tied on a 17 percent likelihood of becoming their party’s choice for the White House as of Monday morning, leaving the long-term front-runner, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in third place on 14 percent. Ossoff, who was elected to his seat in January 2021, just one day before the Capitol riot erupted in Washington, D.C., recently made headlines by mocking President Donald Trump at a rally in Atlanta. “He doesn’t want to do his job,” the senator said of the president in comments that quickly went viral. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.” The reference to Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp drew a furious response from both the president – who angrily likened Ossoff to the 1980s children’s entertainer Pee-Wee Herman – and the White House, which inadvertently prolonged the controversy by aggressively going on the attack. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s recently departed press secretary, Communications Director Steven Cheung and spokesman Davis Ingle all viciously rebuked Ossoff, as did CNN’s resident conservative Scott Jennings, demanding that he apologize for the insinuating remark. Cheung called him “Jon Jackoff” and “the biggest cuck loser in politics” while Ingle referred to him as “a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama” but the senator was unmoved, preferring to stand back and marvel at the “meltdown” he had inspired. Ocasio-Cortez, a well-known Capitol Hill progressive, recently attracted attention by announcing she had frozen her eggs, which some interpreted as a signal that she was putting her maternal ambitions on hold in order to pursue a tilt at the White House. Her recent move to walk back some of the “woke” rhetoric she and others engaged in in 2020 met with a similar reaction and was received by some as a conscious effort to reposition herself closer to the center. As for Newsom, who has also enjoyed trolling Trump on social media over the last year, he admitted his trip to South Carolina last week was made with at least one eye on a presidential run. Neither Ossoff nor Ocasio-Cortez nor Newsom has formally announced their intention to launch a presidential campaign, answering cagily when asked and treating the idea as premature, given that the midterms have not even taken place yet. Meanwhile, most conventional political surveys – as opposed to betting markets – still put former vice president Kamala Harris in pole position, as she has prior experience of mounting a national campaign, albeit at short notice and unsuccessfully. Harris said last month she had “not made a decision” on a potential 2028 run. “I am fully, sincerely, focused on these midterms,” she told her audience at the National Urban League conference in Nashville, Tennessee, alluding to her campaigning efforts on behalf of such candidates as James Talarico in Texas. However, she did outline some fresh policy positions, including expanding the Supreme Court and making statehood available to Puerto Rico and D.C., suggesting she has at least given some thought to her next career move. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments