The vaunted “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives has one less member. And one less man.
Squadster Jamaal Bowman, a hard leftist Democrat who represented New York 16, one of the two men in the formerly nine-member gang, lost his primary race to George Latimer, the county executive for Westchester County.
Normally, incumbents routinely win primaries and then general elections. Not in this case. Hard leftist media blamed Bowman’s loss on the Israel lobby. Specifically, they blame the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, which targeted Bowman because of his pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel views. AIPAC dumped more than $10 million into the race.
Yet Bowman’s position on the Middle East mightn’t be the reason he lost. He might just be too radical even for New York Democrats. And pulling a fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol to delay a vote didn’t help his case, either.
Why He Lost
Latimer defeated Bowman with 58.4 percent of the vote to Bowman’s 41.6. It wasn’t close.
That is no small feat, again, given Bowman’s incumbency.
Yet myriad leftist media, including CNN and the New York Times, said Bowman’s position on the Middle East, specifically Israel, was the reason he was defeated.
“The result in New York’s 16th Congressional District is also a victory for pro-Israel groups, which backed Latimer with historic levels of spending during the campaign. According to ad tracking firm AdImpact, the race was the most expensive House primary on record,” CNN reported.
The network observed that Latimer “entered the race at the urging of pro-Israel groups, argued that Bowman’s vocal opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and his combative political style were out of step with the electorate, which includes a significant Jewish population in Westchester.”
But that wasn’t all, CNN continued. He told supporters of the Palestinian cause that reports about Hamas’s sexual violence, pursuant to the October 7 terror raid on Israel, were “propaganda.” Though he apologized, a pro-Israel group withdrew its endorsement.
The headline over the Times’s offering put it this way: “Bowman Falls in House Primary, Overtaken by Flood of Pro-Israel Money.” But the newspaper changed that line after outrage on social media ensued, Fox News reported. The new headline put it this way: “Bowman Falls to Latimer in a Loss for Progressive Democrats.”
The hard left Intercept offered the same explanation as CNN and the Times’s original headline, citing “progressives,” meaning hard leftists who don’t much care for Israel and some would say are antisemitic.
“You don’t drop $15 million on an election if your positions are popular,” said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for the Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, which endorsed Bowman. “This was an act of desperation from a pro-war lobby that is at odds with the majority of Americans, including American Jews.”
Borgwardt was referring to nearly $15 million spent on the race by AIPAC, the Israel lobby’s flagship in the U.S. Millions more poured in from AIPAC-aligned groups and donors, bringing the outside spending total to around $25 million.
Bowman’s supporters emphasized that AIPAC attacked him not only because of his criticism of human rights abuses in Israel, but also because he has supported progressive policies that are popular among the party’s base.
The Atlantic offered a similar take, but emphasized that Bowman established himself as a crackpot leftist.
The money AIPAC poured into the race and Bowman’s “denunciations of Israel” aren’t the “whole story,” the magazine claimed.
While fellow Squad member and former mixologist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a “progressive star” with a nationwide fan base, Bowman is neither. And indeed, he quickly became known as something of a nut. He confronted conservative Republicans in “shouting matches,” the magazine continued.
Last year, an out-of-control Bowman ranted and raved at Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in the U.S. Capitol about the fictitious problem of “gun violence.” He similarly confronted Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) outside the Capitol, a verbal rumble during which, she claimed, he called her a “white supremacist.” When Greene was in New York City, Bowman told her to “get the hell out of here” as she departed.
But that wasn’t the worst of it, The Atlantic continued:
Bowman’s most embarrassing stumble came on September 30, when he was caught pulling a fire alarm in a Capitol office building after Republicans, on short notice, called a vote to avert a government shutdown. Bowman said he was rushing to make the vote and did not realize that pulling the alarm would trigger an evacuation; Republicans accused him of trying to delay the proceeding, and the House voted in December mostly along party lines to censure him. (He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the District of Columbia for pulling the fire alarm.)
A week after the incident, Hamas invaded Israel. Bowman immediately condemned the terrorist group but quickly shifted to urging de-escalation in the region. He became one of the first House Democrats to call for Israel to halt its bombing campaign in Gaza and eventually accused it of waging “genocide” against Palestinians. In December, days after returning from a trip to Israel, Latimer launched his campaign.
Way Far Left
The New American’s Freedom Index shows just how far into the leftist fever swamps Bowman waded. Of 19 votes in the 188th Congress, Bowman voted correctly only three times. His rating: 15 percent, a repeat of his record in the 117th Congress.
Even Ocasio-Cortez isn’t that far out. She scored 27 percent in the 118th Congress.
As it is, the Squad is now down to one man, “democratic socialist” Greg Casar. He too rated a 15 percent.
