In a defining moment in the battle between the progressive and centrist wings of the Democratic Party, NBC News projects that New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman has lost the Democratic primary for New York’s 16th Congressional District to centrist opponent Westchester County Mayor George Latimer.
In 2020, Bowman campaigned on issues like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, ousting 16-term Rep. Eliot Engel in the Democratic primary in the same district. Bowman’s loss to Latimer marks the reversal of his victory, both as a symbol of the return of the establishment in New York Democratic politics and an exposure of the fact that the left-wing Democratic group known as “The Squad” has its own weaknesses on Israel policy issues. Bowman is far from a perfect politician, but it’s unfortunate that he was ousted on an issue where he fundamentally took the right positions.
Bowman’s removal marks the party’s first election defeat since it was formed in 2018.
Bowman’s downfall marks the team’s first electoral defeat since it was formed in 2018 to elect Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA) and Rashida Tlaib (MI). Bowman was elected in the second wave in 2020. His defeat of an establishment heavyweight two years after Ocasio-Cortez defeated then-Rep. Joe Crowley suggests the first wave was no fluke. It suggested that left-wing challengers could even target powerful establishment Democrats. The team has grown since then.
This team accomplished something previously thought impossible: A candidate who called himself a democratic socialist and spoke passionately of social democratic policies like Medicare for All not only posed a viable challenge to the Democratic establishment; Defeat Them (Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran an astonishingly popular presidential campaign in 2016, opened up this world of possibilities.) Until Tuesday night, select members of this team had also managed to survive primary challenges from the Democratic Party’s mainstream wing.
One of the main reasons Bowman lost was his stance on Israeli policy following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. He quickly emerged as a prominent advocate of a ceasefire, voted against military aid to Israel, and described Israeli military operations as “genocide.” Bowman takes very progressive positions across the board on most issues, so his opposition to funding Israel’s brutal military operations was not surprising. But he also cited his 2021 visit to the West Bank, where he witnessed firsthand the oppression of Palestinians, as a “turning point” in his perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Pro-Israel leaders had recruited Latimer, a decades-old figure in New York politics, to challenge Bowman, and had thrown large sums of cash at him.
Bowman’s stance on Israel puts him at odds with many voters and he could have done more to win back their support. His district, which includes parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, has a large Jewish community, many of whom oppose Bowman’s stance on Israel. Recent polls show that a majority of voters preferred Latimer’s staunchly pro-Israel stance to Bowman’s. Bowman also briefly denied a report on October 7th that Hamas had committed a sexual assault, but fortunately later retracted the report and eventually apologized.
Bowman sometimes uses a level of bombast that I don’t particularly like, but perhaps he overestimated the effectiveness of being constantly on the offensive and underestimated what he should do to shore up his weaknesses. Bowman also appears to have neglected opportunities to build ties with his district’s Jewish community that did not require him to change his position on Israel policy after October 7. A more competent congressman would have made more of an effort to build trust with his diverse community at a time of extraordinary heightened sentiment and prejudice against Jewish and Arab communities.
It’s not unusual for politicians to take positions that many of their constituents vehemently oppose. But pro-Israel groups have exploited Bowman’s weakness and launched an unprecedented lobbying campaign to oust him. A super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, among other groups, has poured a staggering $14.5 million into the race to try to oust Bowman. “This race offers a clear choice,” an AIPAC spokesman told The New York Times. “George Latimer is a progressive, pro-Israel candidate, while Jamaal Bowman refuses to support the Jewish state in fighting a moral and just war against Iran’s terrorist proxies.”
The result was the most expensive primary in modern American history, according to AdImpact, a group that tracks political advertising. It’s unclear how the race would have played out without that massive and unusual outside intervention, as anti-Bowman ads flooded voters’ homes. In particular, the AIPAC-affiliated ads did not explicitly address Bowman’s stance on Israel, instead portraying him as an anti-Biden traitor who manipulates “controversy, confusion, and intrigue.” However, much of the coverage and local organizing surrounding Bowman focused on his stance on Israel, as was evident in Latimer’s criticism of Bowman during the debate.
AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups will probably use this victory as a warning to other Democrats not to criticize Israel too harshly. But the reality is that this is the first victory the group has ever won against an Israeli contingent, and the race had clearly weak candidates and strong opponents. More and more Democrats are speaking out against the unjust U.S. support for Israel’s indiscriminate military campaign and starvation policy in Gaza. I hope they won’t be scared to give up on taking the right stand against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
