Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, a member of the House’s left-wing “squad,” was defeated by George Latimer in a race that exposed Democratic fissures.
“We should not be well adjusted to a sick society,” Representative Jamaal Bowman told supporters in his concession speech.Credit…Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, one of Congress’s most outspoken progressives, suffered a stinging primary defeat on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, unable to overcome a record-shattering campaign from pro-Israel groups and a slate of self-inflicted blunders.
Mr. Bowman was defeated by George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, in a race that became the year’s ugliest intraparty brawl and the most expensive House primary in history.
It began last fall when Mr. Bowman stepped forward as one of the leading critics of how Israelis were carrying out their war with Hamas. But the contest grew into a broader proxy fight around the future of the Democratic Party, exposing painful fractures over race, class and ideology in a diverse district that includes parts of Westchester County and the Bronx.
Mr. Bowman, the district’s first Black congressman and a committed democratic socialist, never wavered from his calls for a cease-fire in Gaza or left-wing economic priorities. Down in the polls, he repeatedly accused his white opponent of racism and used expletives in denouncing the pro-Israel groups as a “Zionist regime” trying to buy the election.
His positions on the war and economic issues electrified the national progressives, who undertook an 11th-hour rescue mission led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. But they ultimately did little to win over skeptical voters and only emboldened his adversaries.
A super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby, dumped $15 million into defeating him, more than any outside group has ever spent on a House race.
Mr. Latimer, a moderate with a loyal local following, offered voters a return to more traditional Democratic politics. Centrists and Jewish voters flocked to him. Mr. Bowman alienated others with his far-left views and a string of embarrassing gaffes he struggled to explain, most notably the decision to pull a false fire alarm in a House office building last fall.
The result was not close. With 82 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Latimer was winning 60 percent to 40 percent.
Given the district’s overwhelming Democratic makeup, Mr. Latimer is expected to easily win the general election. At 70, he would be among the oldest House freshmen and most likely would provide a reliable vote for party leaders.
Addressing supporters in suburban White Plains, Mr. Latimer said he would fight for bipartisanship in Washington and inclusivity at home, but he also took aim at extreme viewpoints in both parties.
“We have to look at the arguments of the far right and the far left and say, ‘you cannot destroy this country with your rhetoric and your arguments,’” he said.
Mr. Bowman, 48, struck a defiant tone in his concession speech. He accused AIPAC and other super PACs involved in the race of spending huge sums to “brainwash people into believing something that isn’t true” and contended that “when we say ‘Free Palestine’ it is not antisemitic.”
“I would like to make a public apology for sometimes using foul language,” he said. “But we should not be well adjusted to a sick society.”
The election result was an excruciating blow for the left.
The movement once held up Mr. Bowman’s upset win in a Democratic primary in 2020, just two years after Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s, as proof of the left’s ascent. Now, with the pendulum swinging back toward the party’s center, he is the first member of the House’s “squad” of young, left-wing lawmakers of color to lose a seat — and may not be the last.
AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups are already targeting Representative Cori Bush of Missouri ahead of an August primary, and progressives fear that the groups’ show of force in New York will chill criticism of Israel in Congress as the war grinds on.
A former middle school principal representing one of the nation’s most Jewish districts, Mr. Bowman was an unlikely partisan in a conflict 5,600 miles away. Four years ago, he actually criticized his opponent, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for spending too much time on issues so far from his district.
But after the war’s outbreak, Mr. Bowman threw himself into the Palestinian cause, framing it as an extension of his work for children and racial justice at home.
Though he repeatedly condemned Hamas, Mr. Bowman was among the first lawmakers to call for a cease-fire, just days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack; to accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza; and to call for the United States to cut off all funding to its ally.
His supporters saw a valiant humanitarian stand and argued Mr. Bowman was speaking for the Black and Latino voters who make up roughly half the district’s population.
But at home, many Jewish voters, including some who eagerly helped elect him in 2020, felt betrayed.
Mr. Bowman did not visit a synagogue in the weeks after the Oct. 7 attack and has spoken since in terms that some saw as antisemitic, as when he suggested “the Jews” in his district had intentionally chosen to live apart from other people.
Mr. Latimer, a more traditional supporter of Israel, entered the race in December at the urging of local rabbis and a Westchester County Democratic establishment that never moved past grudges from 2020.
“After Jamaal Bowman really denied the Jewish experience — and more specifically the Israeli experience — after Oct. 7, I sort of realized: ‘This guy is not willing to see reason, and he’s got to go,’” said Raphael Rosen, a kidney doctor from New Rochelle.
He added: “A lot of strong Israel supporters supported him in 2020, and I’ve heard all of them kind of say that that was a big mistake.”
AIPAC’s involvement further inflamed the race. A bipartisan group dedicated to advancing Israel’s interests in the United States, it has taken an increasingly active role in electoral politics lately to try to stamp out growing skepticism for Israel among Democrats, particularly young progressives.
Mr. Bowman presented not only a vulnerable target, but an opportunity to send a message.
The group bundled $2 million in contributions directly to Mr. Latimer, while its super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent seven times more than Mr. Bowman’s allies combined.
The ads almost never mentioned Israel itself, instead attacking Mr. Bowman as a disloyal Democrat for voting against President Biden’s landmark infrastructure bill and a bipartisan deal to avert a debt crisis.
Mr. Bowman and his allies spent the race’s final weeks trying to discredit AIPAC. It culminated on Saturday in a rally in the South Bronx, miles outside Mr. Bowman’s district, in which he hurled curses at AIPAC, calling it a racist Republican front undermining the democratic process. The super PAC receives considerable funding from Republican donors.
On the ground, though, even some of Mr. Bowman’s allies conceded that his campaign was in trouble long before the group got involved, hamstrung by unforced errors, staff churn and strategic missteps.
The biggest took place last fall when Mr. Bowman, in a hurry to get to the Capitol, pulled the fire alarm. He later apologized, but he was charged with a misdemeanor, and the timing, just a week before Oct. 7, could hardly have been worse.
Opposition researchers turned up old blog posts dabbling in 9/11 conspiracy theories and publicized video of Mr. Bowman calling reports that Hamas sexually abused Israeli women during its attack “propaganda.” (He later apologized.)
Relatively few Democrats in the area stepped up to defend him. Some explained that in four years in office, the congressman had rarely shown interest in getting to know their communities.
Mr. Latimer campaigned as Mr. Bowman’s stylistic and ideological opposite. He favored unflashy campaign stops at train stations and senior centers. He stressed the need to work with Republicans, though the bitterness of his criticism of Mr. Bowman, calling him a showboat chasing social media stardom, surprised some supporters.
Mr. Latimer repeatedly got himself in trouble by using language that his opponents called race baiting. He charged that Mr. Bowman did not ever “mention people who are not Black or brown” and later accused him of trying to “play the ethnic game.”
He also refused to answer questions about Mr. Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza or criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, effectively staking out a position well to the right of his party.
His supporters, though, did not seem bothered.
“Everybody’s not perfect, but what I like most about him is he just comes out for real,” said Mercedes Humphry, a Black retiree in Yonkers, Mr. Bowman’s hometown. “You can feel that he cares about you.”
