The Left Faces A Reckoning In The Suburbs
In New York's 16th Congressional District, Progressives Find Their Achilles' Heel
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman won the 2020 Democratic primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District, it was a massive victory for the ascending progressive movement. Bowman ousted a high-ranking Democrat, Eliot Engel, the House Foreign Relations Committee chairman who had represented some version of the district since 1989. His victory came two years after fellow leftist Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez ousted another high-raking New York Democrat, Joe Crowley, in an adjacent district.
Since then, progressives have been using Bowman’s victory as a sign that their influence was growing outside their urban base. Often mocked in New York as a special interest movement of privileged yuppies in Brooklyn and Manhattan, progressives could now platform Bowman as an example of how their message resonated beyond the city’s borders. He had been talked up for statewide office and even for New York City Mayor, despite the fact he lives just across the border in Yonkers.
Bowman’s political career is close to over today. He faces a potentially devastating defeat to another Democrat, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, in this Tuesday’s Democratic primary. How did one of the progressive movement’s rising stars have this dramatic of a fall? His trajectory parallels the progressive movement's problems since 2020 and his own specific character issues. New York’s 16th District, a diverse constituency where urban meets suburban and wine moms meet Zoomer activists – a constituency President Joe Biden won by nearly 50 points – is the perfect place to explore it.
When Bowman won in 2020, the 16th District was different. It stretched from the Central Bronx to Hartsdale and Rye in Westchester County. It included the Bronx neighborhoods of Riverdale, Fiedston, and Spuyten Duyvil, the primarily Irish enclave of Woodlawn, and the black middle-class North Bronx communities of Wakefield, Williamsbridge, Edenwald, and Co-op City. In Westchester County, the district’s main hubs were the diverse inner-ring New York City suburbs of Yonkers – New York’s third largest city – Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and Rye. Redistricting in 2022 shifted the district north, eliminating nearly all of the Bronx and adding affluent suburbs like Irvington and Rye Brook and the Westchester County seat of White Plains. Another map redrawing this past year readded the Bronx nabes of Edenwald and Co-Op City.
Westchester County has always been the most liberal-leaning of New York City’s suburbs. It was the home turf of Bea Arthur’s iconic TV character Maude Findlay, the liberal nemeses of All In The Family’s conservative icon Archie Bunker. Bowman’s views on the economy and social issues are not completely out of touch with this largely college-educated, socially liberal region. Still, like many suburbs of progressive-run cities, there has been a backlash to some progressive policies on issues like crime and immigration. Similar backlash cost progressives state and federal primaries in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon. It is manifesting itself in New York as well. On Long Island, despite progressives claiming voters wouldn’t embrace a moderate Democrat, U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi won his old seat back by running a moderate campaign after his successor, George Santos, was expelled from Congress. Progressives also struggled in Northern New Jersey in the 2013 state elections, losing several primary races to more moderate Democrats.
To make things worse, there is one issue that Westchester voters often disagree with progressives on and geopolitical issues brought it to the surface last Fall:
Israel.
New York’s 16th Congressional District is home to over 100,000 Jews. Unlike in other New York districts, where large populations of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews reside, the Jewish population here is primarily reform or secular. They are more likely to be socially and economically liberal but be at least marginally Zionist. After the Hamas attacks on October 7th last year, Israeli flags popped up all over the district, especially in areas with large Jewish populations like Scarsdale and Ardsley.
Meanwhile, Bowman aligned himself with the anti-Zionist progressive movement, angering the thousands of Jews who lived in the district. October 7th was a radicalizing event for even those marginally Zionist Jews in America. The worst pogrom since the Holocaust, it led to an overwhelming mix of anger, fear, and grief among Jewish Americans that Bowman didn’t do a good job responding to in his constituency. Bowman had tried to work both ends, voting for the Iron Dome funding bill to the chagrin of progressives and condemning Hamas while also engaging in denials of the extent of Hamas’ atrocities on 10/7; it struck many nerves.
Pro-Israel Democrats recruited Latimer, who was rumored to be considering a run even before 10/7.
The decision to field a primary challenger to Bowman was not just about Israel. After all, the most anti-Israel Democrat in Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, isn’t getting a serious challenge, and neither is Squad member Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Bowman built the target on his back even before the war in Gaza.
In 2021, Bowman voted against President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. The Squad wanted to pass a more progressive piece of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, but it failed when Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the deciding Senate vote, refused to vote for it. Bowman and other members of the Squad demanded that the two be passed together and threatened to tank the infrastructure bill if they weren’t. When their bluff was called, they voted against the bill. It passed anyway. President Biden is quite popular in the district, and Bowman’s decision not to back one of his signature policies didn’t sit well with many Democratic voters. Bowman’s opponents have been hitting him hard for not supporting Biden, while Bowman, at least recently, has responded by trying to frame himself as a staunch Biden ally.
In October, Bowman made news when he pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building, supposedly attempting to stop a House vote. He then pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that was dropped. The House later censured him. Since Latimer announced his campaign, several more unflattering stories have come out about Bowman, including his dabbling in 9/11 conspiracy theories. As one source suggested, he had become too much of a “sideshow.” Latimer was a uniquely strong candidate to field against him.
Polls show Latimer way ahead; even Bowman supporters believe he will likely lose. Progressives will blame his loss on a barrage of money – over $14 million – from AIPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, but Bowman has never been a particularly good fit for this district. He won against an entrenched incumbent who rarely campaigned. (In one embarrassing moment in 2020, Engel showed up to a press conference about police brutality asking to speak and was caught on a hot mic telling then-Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”
Engel’s weakness, the makeup of the district before 2022, and the political currents specific to 2020 allowed Bowman to win by an 11-point margin then. All of those factors are gone now. In 2022, his first election under the new map, Bowman won his primary but was kept to just 54 percent of the vote against two relatively weak challengers. He has always been the Squad’s weakest link and probably never had a chance against a giant like Latimer.
I wouldn’t completely dismiss the potential for an upset, but the polls and the early voting numbers out of Westchester point to a fairly big loss for Bowman and the progressive movement.
THANK YOU FOR READING!
Tomorrow, I will have a full round-up of all the federal and state legislative primaries in New York State this Tuesday, so if you haven’t already done so, subscribe below!
This goon hopefully will be out on his ass after tonight’s votes are counted
As with your November election
Time will tell, this Tuesday might give you an idea( small) of the direction of voters intentions come November.