Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Progressive Israel Critic, Loses Reelection Bid

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. ― Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a progressive firebrand and outspoken advocate for Palestinians’ rights, misplaced his Democratic major on Tuesday, marking the primary defeat of an incumbent member of the ultraliberal “Squad” and a serious setback for the nation’s once-ascendant activist left.

Westchester County Government George Latimer, 70, defeated Bowman, 48, in New York’s sixteenth Congressional District, which encompasses the decrease half of suburban Westchester County and a sliver of the northeastern Bronx. Latimer, a 35-year veteran of Westchester politics, is all however assured a seat in Congress come November for the reason that stable Democratic seat just isn’t aggressive within the common election.

Latimer benefited from the fundraising and tremendous PAC assist of pro-Israel teams, together with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Democratic Majority for Israel. AIPAC’s tremendous PAC alone spent practically $15 million pummeling Bowman in TV, digital and direct-mail promoting, contributing to pro-Latimer exterior teams’ nine-to-one spending benefit over Bowman-aligned unbiased spending packages.

That a few of AIPAC’s largest tremendous PAC donors are Republican billionaires and multimillionaires was a supply of explicit frustration for Bowman and his progressive allies.

Usama Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, the left-wing group that first recruited Bowman to run within the 2020 cycle, predicted AIPAC’s spending would have a “chilling effect,” dampening congressional Democrats’ urge for food for outspoken criticism of Israel.

“AIPAC is functionally giving a warning shot to the entire Democratic caucus that if you speak out against [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu or criticize the Israeli government, this is what can happen to you,” mentioned Andrabi, whose group additionally erected the largest tremendous PAC in Bowman’s nook.

AIPAC and its allies have certainly made a serious assertion to any would-be crusaders towards the pro-Israel institution. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), one other Squad member elected in 2020, is AIPAC’s subsequent goal. She faces a problem from Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor, on Aug. 6.

Framing Bowman’s loss solely as a story of AIPAC’s may felling a measured skeptic of the Jewish state is a bit too handy, nevertheless – each for Bowman allies loath to confess his errors, and for pro-Israel teams hoping to strike worry into the hearts of all progressive Democrats.

The truth of what occurred is extra advanced. Bowman isn’t simply any critic of Israel, and New York’s sixteenth isn’t simply any district.

Due to a nonpartisan voter registration and turnout drive from Westchester Unites, a gaggle funded by the Orthodox Union’s Train Coalition, Jewish residents — roughly 1 in 8 members of the voting-age inhabitants – made up greater than one-third of the voters who solid early ballots within the major, in accordance with the group’s estimates.

And after the Hamas terror assault on Oct. 7 and the ferocious Israeli invasion of Gaza, Bowman questioned the proof of Hamas’ sexual assaults, routinely accused Israel of committing genocide and aligned himself with the anti-Zionist Democratic Socialists of America — steps that value him the assist of J Road, a liberal pro-Israel group, and progressive Jews who have been as soon as his influential backers.

As well as, Bowman gave his foes ample fodder to color him as a thorn in President Joe Biden’s facet. In adverts, the tremendous PAC affiliated with AIPAC highlighted Bowman’s 2021 vote towards the bipartisan infrastructure regulation, and to a lesser extent, his 2023 vote towards a debt ceiling deal.

Bowman additionally pulled the fireplace alarm on his method to a vote in a congressional workplace constructing in late September. It’s a choice he says was an accident and for which he has apologized, however the damaging information cycle additional undermined him with gettable voters simply days earlier than Oct. 7 injected new volatility into the race.

“Great candidates in primaries when they have vulnerable opponents,” mentioned Mark Mellman, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel.

And Latimer was maybe the dream candidate for individuals seeking to dislodge Bowman. Burnishing his liberal credentials in 2017 when he unseated a Republican county govt, Latimer enacted a raft of socially liberal insurance policies, akin to banning gun reveals on county property and welcoming immigrants, in addition to some fashionable bread-and-butter reforms like making choose buses free in the summertime and making a proper to counsel for households going through eviction.

That made it more durable for Bowman’s allies to credibly paint him as a Republican instrument by tying him to AIPAC mega-donors who’ve supported former President Donald Trump.

Latimer’s supporters are “trying to portray George as a progressive. And he is. I voted for George and I’ve been a supporter of him as county executive,” Howard Horowitz, a Bowman supporter from New Rochelle, advised HuffPost earlier this month. “I can’t believe he sold out to AIPAC money.”

Maybe extra importantly, Latimer was a ubiquitous presence in Westchester, exhibiting up at public college award ceremonies, life cycle occasions, native occasion conferences, and even progressive activist get-togethers.

Bowman had contempt for Latimer’s concentrate on relationships and glad-handing, describing it as window dressing for his lack of progressive imaginative and prescient.

“He doesn’t do anything. He’s a retail politician,” Bowman advised HuffPost in late Might. “He has coffee with Dem leaders to make them feel good about themselves.”

However voters appreciated Latimer’s appearances. Michelle Jones, a well being care employee from Yonkers who met Latimer at a Memorial Day cookout, remembered him quietly attending her native SEIU 1199 union conferences and sitting within the again. “He’s a personable person,” she mentioned.

Jim Russo, an Irvington liquor retailer proprietor, voted for Bowman in 2022 however prefers what he sees as Latimer’s consensus-driven model of governing.

Bowman is “a good guy, and very passionate in what he believes in,” Russo mentioned. “I’m just a longtime friend of George Latimer for 40 years and admire the way he conducts himself.”

Bowman tried to marketing campaign on his native accomplishments as nicely. He touted, for instance, his work securing a mass COVID-19 vaccination website within the Bronx’s Co-op Metropolis improvement.

“It’s someone that cares, another working family person that cares and is actually working for us and not, like, corporate stuff,” mentioned Ebony Hollingsworth, a customer-service consultant from Co-op Metropolis and volunteer for the Working Households Social gathering, which is backing Bowman.

However Bowman emphasised nationwide issues extra usually in his remarks — rhetoric he believed creates “movements in grassroots organizing that leads to American revolutions.” And his marketing campaign’s effort to say credit score for bringing $1 billion in federal funds to the district was simply debunked.

Within the closing days and weeks of his marketing campaign, Bowman appeared to have resigned himself to defeat and as a substitute got down to demonize AIPAC and different pro-Israel teams as a lot as doable on his approach out.

Talking at a mosque in June, Bowman denounced the assaults he was enduring from “the Zionist regime we call AIPAC.” And in a Saturday rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Bowman declared, “We are going to show fucking AIPAC the power of the motherfucking South Bronx” — a reference to the situation of the rally, however not part of the borough that’s in his district.

The damaging promoting and private assaults on Bowman apparently acquired to him, which is a part of their supposed influence. Mellman, of the Democratic Majority for Israel, mentioned that when deciding whether or not to get entangled in a race, “We’re looking at the trouble he’s already in and the trouble we can get him in. And we found a lot.”

In fact, Latimer additionally acquired himself into loads of hassle. A white man in a district the place Black, Latino and Asian voters collectively make up a majority of residents, Latimer directly boasted of his roots in majority-Black Mount Vernon and claimed that Bowman had an “ethnic advantage” within the race as a result of he’s Black.

Taking part in on fears of Bowman’s advocacy for the Palestinian trigger, Latimer accused Bowman of being extra accountable to Dearborn, Michigan — a metropolis with a big Arab-American neighborhood — than cities in his district.

What’s extra, Latimer prompt he would oppose any tax will increase — a place that might put him to the fitting of Biden, who has known as for reversing a few of the Trump-era tax cuts for rich people and companies.

Feedback like these did little to assuage the fears of Bowman supporters who noticed the inflow of massive cash behind Latimer as a method to neuter Bowman’s coalition and progressive home priorities.

“They’re scared,” Hollingsworth mentioned. “They see the power that we have when we’re a collective and working together.”

Latimer probably has some strides to make if he’s to fix fences with voters like Hollingsworth and different Black voters unhappy to see Bowman go. Bowman was the primary Black particular person to characterize the northeast Bronx and decrease Westchester County.

Horowitz, who’s Jewish, can be apprehensive concerning the toll the election has taken on Black-Jewish relations, given the organized Jewish neighborhood’s enthusiastic opposition to Bowman and assist for Latimer.

“If Latimer wins, I don’t know if it’s reparable,” Horowitz advised HuffPost earlier this month.