Kingmaker in the Making: Indian American Ravi Sahai Heads the Organization Behind the Push to Draft Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- Sahai's documented career runs through three campaigns at the center of New York's left in recent years.
When Ready for AOC launched on Monday, Nov. 9, its public face was Ravi Sahai, a New York organizer who has spent recent election cycles inside the city’s left-wing campaigns. The group is trying to persuade Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028.
News reports, beginning with The New York Times, describe Sahai as the group’s spokesperson. According to news reports progressive activists and union leaders launched the group and is entirely independent of Ocasio-Cortez, who has not said whether she will run.
The group says it has been organizing quietly since September through house meetings. It aims to recruit 10,000 local organizers to collect 1 million pledges of support, and says it already has more than 500 local political and labor leaders in 35 states. Sahai said the petition had drawn more than 4,000 signatures by early afternoon on launch day.
A Campaign Operative’s Path
Sahai’s documented career runs through three campaigns at the center of New York’s left in recent years. He worked as a field organizer for Ocasio-Cortez’s 2024 reelection campaign. That puts him inside the operation of the politician he is now urging to run for president.
He also worked for Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won New York’s mayoralty in 2025, according to The New York Times. Political writer Michael Lange listed him among the top staffers from the Mamdani campaign who moved on to the next shared project.
His most recent assignment was campaign manager for Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s successful run for Congress.
His most recent assignment was campaign manager for Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s successful run for Congress. Valdez is a longtime United Auto Workers organizer and NYC-DSA member, and was Mamdani’s choice in the race. She is now a representative-elect.
That sequence, from field organizer to a top Mamdani staffer to running a winning congressional campaign within about two years, places Sahai among a cohort of young operatives that Lange describes as NYC-DSA’s homegrown talent pipeline.
His Politics, in His Own Words
Sahai sees Ocasio-Cortez as the natural successor to Sen. Bernie Sanders as the country’s most prominent socialist. He pointed to their joint Fighting Oligarchy Tour and argued that no one else matches Sanders’s vision and national impact. He cited Sanders’s two presidential runs and Mamdani’s 2025 victory as proof that socialist politics can grow nationally. He also called policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal broadly popular, and said the country is ready for a socialist candidate after left-wing wins in the midterms.
He told The New York Times that the group has two goals: build grassroots infrastructure in case she runs, and show her that a movement stands ready to carry her to victory. He said the approach borrows from Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and Mamdani’s 2025 field operation.
Sahai has framed the project as a lesson from Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 losses, when moderates coalesced behind Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. He says the aim is a movement “so big and so widespread” that it can withstand a similar consolidation behind a centrist in 2028.
The Wider Field
Ready for AOC is not the only effort of its kind. A separate political action committee, Draft AOC 2028, was formed in July, and allies of Rep. Ro Khanna have launched a similar group to encourage his candidacy. Ocasio-Cortez has said she would decide after the midterms, and she could instead challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer or remain in the House. The New York City chapter of DSA is scheduled to vote later this month on encouraging her to run.
Mamdani, asked about her plans on Monday, said Ocasio-Cortez weighs where she can do the most good for working people.