After a little-known candidate named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stunned a powerful Queens congressman in a 2018 primary, Democratic Party leaders were determined to never be surprised the same way again, vowing to protect incumbents and clashing with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other upstarts for pushing for more progressive candidates.
On Friday, it became clear that those efforts had failed, as another unlikely challenger, Jamaal Bowman, shocked the Democratic establishment by defeating Representative Eliot L. Engel, overcoming the attempts of old-guard party elite like Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to save a 16-term incumbent.
Mr. Bowman, 44, did so by running against Republicans in Washington and the caution of centrist Democrats everywhere, capitalizing on seven-figure spending by progressive groups to help him win the primary in a district that straddles the Bronx and Westchester County.
“It means this country is ready, it’s yearning, it’s excited for progressive change,” Mr. Bowman, a middle school principal from Yonkers, said on Friday. “And it’s excited to finally hold elected officials accountable.”
Unlike Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, Mr. Bowman’s looks more like an indicator than an anomaly: He is one of three younger, insurgent Democrats in New York who seem poised to tilt the state’s, and the party’s, congressional delegation further to the left.
The other two, Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres, are candidates for open seats in two neighboring districts. If elected, they would be the first openly gay Black men in Congress. On Tuesday, Mr. Jones was declared the winner of the primary in a district that covers parts of Westchester and Rockland counties; Mr. Torres holds a healthy lead in his Bronx district’s race.
Another veteran Democrat, Representative Carolyn Maloney, is fighting for her political life in the district that includes Manhattan’s East Side. Ms. Maloney holds a slim lead over another left-wing challenger, Suraj Patel. The contest, like the one Mr. Bowman won and many others in New York, has dragged on as election officials grapple with the deluge of absentee ballots that were cast by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The crush of absentee ballots — more than 50 percent of the total cast in some races — has overwhelmed election officials who are accustomed to handling far fewer than that. The disqualification of thousands of ballots for small technical errors has also raised the specter of widespread voter disenfranchisement, and concerns about how prepared officials are for an even bigger turnout in November.
One candidate who will not have to worry about a November election is Mr. Engel, who on Friday wished Mr. Bowman well, and said that he “never for a minute thought of this as my seat.”
“It’s the people’s seat,” the congressman said in a statement.
With his loss, Mr. Engel became the fifth House incumbent and second Democrat — Daniel Lipinski of Illinois was the other — to fall in this year’s primaries. The Republicans who lost were Steve King of Iowa, Denver Riggleman of Virginia and Scott Tipton of Colorado.
As the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Engel had practiced a form of old-school politics: rising slowly through the party ranks; grabbing an aisle seat at the State of the Union so he could glad-hand presidents as they passed; and boasting of the perks he brought home to his district.
Entering his fourth decade in Washington, Mr. Engel, 73, seemed consistently surprised by the level of opposition he faced in this year’s race. He positioned himself as a dependable liberal voice in Congress, citing his own support for Medicare for All, action on climate change and securing billions of dollars for housing programs.
“You know, I’m pretty progressive myself,” Mr. Engel said in an interview just weeks before the June 23 primary.
But he also seemed badly out of step with the challenges of campaigning amid the pandemic, a crisis that killed more than 4,500 people in the Bronx and Westchester and caused typical retail politics — talking to constituents on the street, attending town halls, handing out pamphlets — to be replaced by Zoom calls and live-streamed debates.
“Engel wasn’t running against Bowman,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic political consultant. “He was running against Been Around Too Long. And Been Around Too Long won.”
Mr. Bowman was aided by an array of stars from the Democratic Party’s left wing, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated Joseph Crowley, the No. 4 House Democrat at the time, in 2018 (and fought off her own primary challenger this year).
He also got ample financial help came from liberal groups like the Working Families Party and political action committees like the Justice Democrats, which jointly spent more than $1 million to oust Mr. Engel. Justice Democrats also recruited Mr. Bowman, after recommendations for education activists.
A first-time candidate with a fiery anti-establishment message, Mr. Bowman ran a campaign that built firmly on the pillars of current progressive policy: reforming the criminal justice system, addressing income inequality and embracing Medicare for All. He also preached about the need for broader social changes such as what he called “righting the wrongs of our country’s history toward a better future.”
Those issues took on new urgency as the United States reeled after the killing in police custody of George Floyd in late May. The protests that followed were broadly incorporated into, and invigorated, the Black Lives Matter movement, and provided Mr. Bowman, who is Black and said he had been physically attacked by the police as a child, with a powerful talking point.
The Black Lives Matter movement also served as a backdrop for a cringe-inducing moment for Mr. Engel. At a social justice event in the Bronx in early June, he was caught on microphone suggesting that he was only there because of his contested race.
“If I didn’t have a primary,” he said, “I wouldn’t care.”
Some analysts say Mr. Bowman’s win — and strong showings by Mr. Jones, Mr. Torres, and Mr. Patel — reinforces the power of Black and other minority voters in an increasingly diverse city.
“The demographics have flipped,” said Peter Ragone, a former top aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio and a regular adviser to Democratic politicians. “And it’s accelerating with a velocity that no one could have anticipated.”
Mr. Bowman, who said his campaign had made a million calls to voters, also hammered Mr. Engel for not being in the district during the crisis, suggesting that the incumbent spent much of his time at a home he owns in suburban Maryland. Mr. Engel sought to refute the assertion, saying he was a steady presence in the district, including in Riverdale, where he lives.
In the campaign’s closing weeks, as Mr. Bowman gained momentum and prominent backers, prominent allies of Mr. Engel tried to salvage his flagging campaign. Ms. Clinton endorsed him a week before the primary, followed in short order by Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat who said Mr. Engel deserved a vote because “seniority matters.”
Those pleas followed endorsements from Ms. Pelosi, James E. Clyburn, the House majority whip; and Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic Caucus chairman. All were for naught, as Mr. Bowman won big in the Bronx and bested Mr. Engel by a comfortable margin in Westchester.
In a statement released shortly after The Associated Press called declared him the winner on Frida, Mr. Bowman referred to both his compelling personal story and the continuing reckoning on race and policing in America.
“I’m a Black man who was raised by a single mother in a housing project,” he said. “That story doesn’t usually end in Congress. But today, that 11-year-old boy who was beaten by police is about to be your next representative.”
Mr. Bowman is the prohibitive favorite to win in November given that Democrats outnumber Republicans more than four-to-one in the district. There is no Republican candidate, and only one other challenger, Patrick McManus of the Conservative Party.
In an interview, Mr. Bowman promised to bring the same energy to Washington that he brought to his campaign. He bashed President Trump as a man who was proving himself to be “not only be a fascist, but a racist,” and he pledged to fight for racial and economic justice, public education, protecting the environment and more.
Despite his insurgent campaign, Mr. Bowman added that he was looking forward to finding common ground in with his fellow House Democrats.
“I look forward to getting to Congress and working with my colleagues in the Democratic Party, regardless of if they are quote-unquote establishment,” he said, adding, “At this moment in our country’s history, we have to work together.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
