Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) primary defeat by moderate Democrat George Latimer did not come as a surprise. Polls showed the incumbent down by double digits, along with Latimer racking up high-profile endorsements from establishment Democratic leaders such as Hillary Clinton, while Bowman gained an endorsement by Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, in the last election, Bowman only won his primary with 54% of the vote. As the first and so far only member of “the squad”, an informal group of socialist and progressive Members of Congress including AOC and Ilhan Omar, Bowman’s defeat has been attributed to the ongoing crisis in the Democratic party over the Israel-Hamas war. Bowman blamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which invested heavily in the race, among other well-funded organizations for his loss. But in reality, Bowman brought about his own undoing in at least four different ways.
First, Bowman repeatedly showed poor political instincts, crumbling his coalition, to the point that he openly acknowledged his campaign was not about bringing people together, but getting enough turnout from his core base. He’s accused the Jewish community of his district (NY-16), one of the largest such communities in the country, of self-segregating. Before Congress, he wrote poems that said 9/11 was a conspiracy and, in May of this year, it was discovered that his YouTube account followed numerous conspiracy theorists across the political spectrum. As a Congressman, he neither passed his own legislation nor supported the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Biden Administration’s signature achievement, upsetting moderate Democrats. But perhaps most inexplicably, in September 2023 Bowman, a former school principal, pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon Congressional Office Building. Bowman claimed to have believed that pulling the fire alarm would open a locked door, yet it’s commonly thought that the real reason was to delay a vote. The police for their part noted signs were put up stating that the exit Bowman tried to use was for emergency purposes only. Bowman later plead guilty to a misdemeanor and was censured by the House Ethics Committee, with three Democrats voting in favor.
The censure vote reveals Bowman’s contentious relationship with other congressional Democrats. After taking a swipe at fellow Democratic NY representative Ritchie Torres over his support for Israel, Torres retorted that he would consider endorsing Latimer. Torres did not officially do so, but his tweets leave little doubt to his opinions. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said Bowman “went out of his way to punch, to kick, to offend.” The only Jewish Democratic Member of the House of Representatives in New York, Jerrold Nadler, chided AIPAC for its spending during the primary because Bowman would have lost anyway. While officially endorsed by the Democratic leadership, the party provided only nominal support to Bowman, further hinting at no love lost between Bowman and the Democratic establishment. One representative, Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), actually did endorse Latimer. Even The Nation, an organ of the American Left, acknowledged in a post-mortem Bowman’s numerous shortcomings as a candidate. Perhaps the clearest example of Bowman’s lack of political acumen was his penultimate rally before the election where he said that this election is “Going to show f**king AIPAC the Power of the Motherf**king South Bronx” which is not part of his district but represented by the previously mentioned Torres.
Second, he blatantly opened himself up to charges of hypocrisy and embodying the label of ‘Champagne Socialist.’ He supports defunding the police but has his own special police protection. He said his leadership PAC For the Children would not accept money from certain industries such as real estate but has in fact done so. He supports taking down symbols that honor the Confederacy but defends a mural in his district honoring Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, America’s largest group devoted to racism and nationalism. As a middle school principal, Bowman displayed a “Wall of Honor” that included not just the previously mentioned Farrakhan but convicted murders Assata Shakur and Mutulu Shakur (no relation) of the terroristic Marxist-Leninist Black Liberation Army. When confronted, a Bowman spokesperson said that the complaints were “…a rhetorical tool of the far-right…”, a familiar deflection for Bowman.
While Bowman often references working in education, his own grasp of history seems inconsistent at best. Defending the honoring of Assata Shakur, he compared her to Thomas Jefferson, whom he accuses of raping his slaves – referring to Jefferson’s near definitive relationship with Sally Hemmings. Leaving aside the mental gymnastics required to argue a moral equivalence between Thomas Jefferson and followers of Marxist-Leninism, historian Annette Gordon-Reed, a leading scholar on Jefferson and Hemmings, has rejected such phrasing of the relationship. As a final insult, Conservative activist Christopher Rufo recently accused Bowman of plagiarism in his Ed.D dissertation.
The third is his exploitation of race. Bowman claims his politics are rooted “in love,” claiming that “Whoever you encounter, whether they agree or disagree or hate my guts, engage them with your humanity and with your love for them.” And yet, Bowman’s repeated accusations of racism at his opponents suggest a decidedly Manichean worldview. In this election specifically, Bowman went out of his way to accuse Latimer of being a racist. The charge is less believable when considering that both David Paterson, New York State’s first black governor, and former House Member Mondaire Jones endorsed Latimer. Bowman has said that having a few black friends does not make someone “anti-racist.” Fair enough, but that also means having a few Jewish supporters does not absolve one from charges of antisemitism.
The fourth reason is his response to the October 7th attacks on Israel. Bowman, unlike other members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), was not initially anti-Israel. While Elliot Engels, the Democratic incumbent Bowman overcame in 2020, was an ardent supporter of Israel, Bowman ignored the issue on the campaign trail. As The Intercept put it, Bowman’s success was more a defeat for the “Israel lobby” than a victory for the Palestinian cause. Bowman’s actions soon reinforced this description. He supported the Iron Dome and met with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, much to the anger of the DSA. In 2023, Bowman claimed to no longer be part of DSA, but then contradicted himself in May of 2024 by claiming he was still a member as he requested their endorsement for the race he recently lost. During the primary, Bowman increasingly adopted the anti-Zionist position of DSA, pledging to switch to opposing the Iron Dome and supporting the Boycott Disinvest and Sanction (BDS) movement. Bowman went on to say that his 2021 visit to Israel convinced him that a two-state solution was impossible, but he apparently decided not to announce this change until June of this year.
On November 17th at a pro-Palestine rally, Bowman dismissed allegations that Hamas had raped Israeli women on October 7th. Bowman did not dispassionately call for calm and more information, but instead asserted that the claims were “lies” and “propaganda.” While Bowman later apologized when confronted about the remarks, the damage was already done. That the congressmen could confidently dismiss such crimes amid the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, perpetrated by an organization, Hamas, that can trace intellectual roots to National Socialism was the final straw for American Jews. As far as they were concerned, the Congressmen’s rhetoric was smug, self-righteous, and unempathetic. Nothing demonstrates the alienation of Bowman and Jewish community more than an ad where Elie Wiesel’s son Elisha said Bowman traffics in antisemitic “lies and conspiracy theories.”
In his concession speech, Bowman blamed AIPAC and racism for his defeat, but in truth it was his numerous self-inflicted wounds and alienating traits that unseated him. The soon-to-be former congressmen should be wary of casting blame. As the saying goes, when you point the finger at someone, three more point back at you.