AOC channels Obama's "Hope and Change" message

DETROIT — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's message on the campaign trail increasingly echoes Barack Obama's early rhetoric during his 2008 campaign for president.

Why it matters: Ocasio-Cortez is broadening her pitch beyond revolutionary democratic socialism to something closer to Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" ahead of a potential 2028 run for the White House.

• Former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod also hears the parallels, telling Axios: "Folks forget how much the Obama campaign in 2008 was an insurgency against the broken politics of those times. So AOC's words, while her own, are familiar in spirit."

Driving the news: Campaigning in Michigan this weekend for progressive Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez argued for liberal policies while making a more universal case against politics-as-usual.

• "Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?" she asked a crowd of Democrats here. "A playbook that says in order to win we must be defenders of the same status quo that is drowning us and tells us the aspiration to change our government and the ambition to even try is foolish? No, it is not foolish, Michigan."
• That recalled Obama in 2007, telling Democrats in Iowa that "the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do in this election.… That's why I am asking you to stop settling for what the cynics say we have to accept. In this election — in this moment — let us reach for what we know is possible."

AOC also channeled Obama's "hope and change" rhetoric while campaigning in Montana in May, telling voters to "ask your skeptical neighbor to believe. It's the only thing that we have. Our hope is the only thing that creates change, and that's why so many people try to talk us out of it."

• El-Sayed told Axios ahead of his rally with Ocasio-Cortez in Lansing, Mich., that when he first heard Obama speak, "I didn't know politics would sound like that, and I think for a lot of people who are listening to what she has to say, I think they're feeling the same way."

Zoom in: Ocasio-Cortez embraces some of Obama's themes, but believes in more left-wing policies like Medicare for All, a moratorium on building the data centers powering AI, more skepticism of trade deals, and more.

• She's not the only potential 2028 contender trying to position themself as a change candidate, but the 36-year-old New Yorker has less establishment baggage than others.

The big picture: Michigan's Senate race has become the key battleground for the left wing in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential race.

• Left-wing Democrats have scored several primary victories this cycle, but mostly in places that are already strongly Democratic.
• If El-Sayed can win the primary in which he is being outspent 12 to 1 and then the general election in the swing state of Michigan, progressives will see it as validation of their theory that they're actually more electable than centrist Democrats by pledging to be bold and shake up the status quo.
• It also would give AOC, or another progressive, an electability argument in a 2028 presidential primary.

Between the lines: Ocasio-Cortez's allies and her skeptics alike believe she has the ability to broaden Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' progressive coalition.

• They argue that she's less rigid and more pragmatic, which has led to a less hostile relationship with the Democratic Party's establishment (moves that also have attracted left-wing critics).
• AOC has been more selective than Sanders in making endorsements this year. She didn't endorse Graham Platner's Senate bid in Maine, and so avoided the fallout from his withdrawal from the race amid a sexual assault accusation.
• Sanders also had a more contentious relationship with Obama: He was critical of Obama's administration particularly on issues such as trade. Sanders' 2016 White House campaign against Hillary Clinton was in many ways a critique of the administration.
• A person familiar with Ocasio-Cortez's relationship with Obama said the former president has been impressed with her abilities as a communicator and that they've had a few positive engagements behind the scenes.

Some progressives already believe Ocasio-Cortez could win the presidency.

• Shawn Fain — president of the United Auto Workers, which has endorsed El-Sayed — told Axios he believes AOC could "definitely" win a state like Michigan and also win the White House. "I believe she could," he said.
• "It's going to come down to who working-class people believe is going to represent their interest, and who they perceive is going to fight for them," he added.
• El-Sayed added that he thinks Ocasio-Cortez would be a great president. "There's an empathy to her and an understanding of where people are, and an ability to relate that would be such a gift to our country."