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LESSONS OF BOWMAN’S LOSS – NO, IT WASN’T A GENERALIZED DEFEAT
FOR ‘THE LEFT.’  
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Robert Kuttner
June 26, 2024
The American Prospect
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_ The loss of Rep. Jamaal Bowman to AIPAC-backed challenger George
Latimer is being played as a defeat for “the left” and a sign of
the Democratic Party and its voters moving to the center. Sorry, but
the reality is rather more complicated. _

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks during a primary election night
watch party, June 25, 2024, in Yonkers, New York. (Yuki Iwamura/AP
Photo // The American Prospect),

 

The loss of Rep. Jamaal Bowman to AIPAC-backed challenger George
Latimer, the Westchester County executive, is being played as a defeat
for “the left” and a sign of the Democratic Party and its voters
moving to the center. As _The New York Times
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it, “Mr. Bowman’s win in 2020 seemed to herald an ascendant
progressive movement. In 2024, the center is regaining power.”

Sorry, but the reality is rather more complicated. For starters,
Bowman took the seat in the 2020 primary away from the 16-term
incumbent, Eliot Engel, who had neglected to pay attention to the fact
that the district, based in the Bronx, had become a lot Blacker and
browner since Engel had first become its congressman in 1988.

Bowman’s was a classic grassroots insurgent challenge against an
incumbent who had become out of touch. Bowman was endorsed not only by
leading progressives and the Working Families Party but by the
editorial board of _The New York Times_.

But the seat was redistricted after the 2020 census, and moved more
substantially into suburban Westchester County. The old seat was
almost evenly divided between the Bronx and southern Westchester. In
the new seat, the Bronx is less than 15 percent of the electorate.

From that moment on, Bowman was a long shot to keep the seat as soon
as a plausible challenger materialized. In 2022, he got only 57
percent of the vote
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a divided Democratic primary.

AIPAC’s unprecedented outside funding of Latimer was a disgrace, but
Bowman did himself no favors in the way he conducted his campaign.
Instead of challenging Latimer as a centrist special-interest
candidate, Bowman, perhaps sensing his likely defeat, doubled down on
statements guaranteed to offend many voters whose support he needed to
keep.

As _Times_ columnist Michelle Goldberg
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out, in one of the few thoughtful commentaries on this divisive race,
Bowman fell into the habit of using the word “Zionist” as an
insult, and at one point dismissed reports of Israeli women being
raped as lies and propaganda. As Goldberg noted, many of Latimer’s
comments were at least as deplorable. He tried to racialize the
campaign by referring to Bowman as caring only about his Black and
brown constituents.

Bowman also passed up opportunities to criticize Latimer for opposing
widely supported Democratic proposals to restore taxes on the rich
that were cut under Trump—a key plank in President Biden’s
re-election campaign. Latimer has declared, “I am not signing on to
raising taxes
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As a mark of the _Times_’ editors’ cluelessness, Goldberg’s
nuanced column was originally headlined “Jamaal Bowman’s Political
Malpractice.” Goldberg must have gone ballistic. Within two hours,
the headline had been changed to “The Most Important Primary
Election of the Year Is Also a Heartbreaker.”

That it surely was. Among the heartbreaks are deeper divisions between
Blacks and Jews, as well as more veracity, courtesy of AIPAC, to the
ancient slander of Jews as having dual loyalties. Traditionally, the
House leadership supports incumbents against challengers, but makes an
exception when challengers are supported by AIPAC.

Among the other special interests that threw money at Latimer were
PACs supporting cryptocurrencies. AIPAC and corporate Democrats should
take no comfort from having knocked off a leading progressive, because
Pyrrhic victories like this one will only weaken the unity that
Democrats need next November.

And if anyone should be charged with political malpractice, it is
President Biden, for continuing to support Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu no matter what. The more Netanyahu insults Biden, the more
Biden keeps sending aid for offensive assaults on Gaza and ignores his
own red lines, looking weak as well as complicit.

Were it not for Israel’s continuing Gaza war, these divisions among
Democrats would be far more manageable, progressives would go on
winning grassroots races based on the pocketbook issues that are the
Democrats’ strong suit, and we would be at far less risk of a Trump
presidency.

_[ROBERT KUTTNER is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect,
and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School.]_

_Read the original article at Prospect.org
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_Used with the permission. © The American Prospect
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All rights reserved.  _

_Support the American Prospect [[link removed]]._

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* Jamaal Bowman
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* The Squad
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* 2024 Elections
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* AIPAC
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* redistricting
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* New York
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* Democratic Party
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* zionism
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* J Street
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* Jewish Voice for Peace
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* Israel
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* Gaza
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* Palestine
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Bronx
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* Westchester
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* African Americans
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* Black voters
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* African American elected officials
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* Jewish voters
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* Jewish community
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* George Latimer
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