Micah I appreciate this reporting, immensely. But I have to admit, it sounds a little like lefties will only be tolerated in congress if they are exceptionally talented at retail, willing to bend the knee on fundraising, and will... keep the door cracked for Israel to torture kids. (I realize that's not the group's perception of that bill, but my god. Look at what you're saying here.) And if they're not, they're going to get thrown overboard for a right-wing Dem that had by all accounts vastly worse baggage - and worse, the DC Dems power structure will repeatedly spike the ball in lefties faces and do everything they can to make sure lefties are absolutely not a part of the coalition they are remotely interested in. Look at the bigger picture here. I understand Bowman made some mistakes. But when we look at poll after poll showing Biden struggling with younger and more diverse voters, this kind of thing is precisely why. It's not that young voters are prioritizing Gaza even, it's more perceptual. They are getting the idea their cynicism is entirely justified. If you tell groups of voters to fuck off repeatedly, eventually they will.
Dan--Summer Lee shows you can do this far more successfully. (By the way, on the McCollum bill, people like me and the whole J St apparatus defended Bowman's decision to sign-on. My point was that he did that without any advance consultation or heads-up, needlessly making ripples that grew into waves. As a 30-plus-year resident of this district, it was all predictable.) You want more lefties in Congress? There are no shortcuts.
So can you engage with an honest assessment of just how much J Street fucked Bowman or not? From outside the district it is opaque. But it sure seems like this report and the constant stream of J Street quotes and sources from Marans are delivering the message that only J Street can protect lefty members of Congress. Care to actually comment on that?
Micah, I love the base building theme. I would not minimize the impact of money (including Bowman’s unnecessary lack thereof) in our politics ala Citizens United or the role of Trumpian-type falsehoods including blood-liable-esque accusations of anti-Semitism. And the impact of these is as you say is multiplied by the lack of base building. Let’s hope the left in opposition now rises to that occasion in the 16th and in the wider NY political area.
The district is completely different, but I think a lot about how Hank Johnson has become a reliable supporter of Palestinian rights on the Hill and he hasn't really ever faced a credible challenge. He himself toppled Cynthia McKinney, who very much had a Jamaal Bowman devil-may-care attitude at times, but since AIPAC helped in that race, it has been pretty powerless over the district. Above all else, building a relationship with your constituents is key. Maybe it's different in that district, but in most districts in America the Middle East isn't going to decide your fate, but what's happening in Middle America might.
Thank you for the analysis on Bowman's loss. However, no thanks for the advice to Joe Biden. Biden is the best person to beat Trump and that is the defining challenge of this year. Don't turn one bad night into a full on unforced error.
Joe Biden is a good president. He is doing great things for the economy and all Americans. And he will beat Trump if we support him. Let's do that.
This is an excellent article - and indeed, a hard truth. I was one of those people who came from outside NY16 to help GOTV for Bowman -- in Yonkers. The closer we got to Election Day -- and especially on that day itself -- I could tell that Bowman was speaking to a small sliver of leftists mostly from outside the district. As an outsider, I don't know the district like you. But nothing you wrote surprises me. I joined Jews for Jamaal, but I did not canvass with them because they were further north in the Jewish parts of the district. I stayed in Yonkers, which is more accessible by public transportation. I learned from people I spoke with that constituent services were lacking. After the rally with Bernie and AOC more than a few black voters told me they were offended by Bowman's language. Last year I wrote an article for The Revealer, "What Does BDS Really Mean" (it's available on-line) and in that article I discuss Bowman and his principled refusal to endorse BDS. As he moved hard left, he embraced BDS and talked more about AIPAC than what he was doing and wanted to do to improve the lives of his constituents. From reading Sifry, I now understand the depths of Bowman's misjudgments.
An interesting note: when I canvassed residents of Yonkers I didn't lead with AIPAC or Israel/Palestine -- but with local issues. Toward the end of talking to people I often raised the problem of AIPAC's money and Bowman's support for an immediate ceasefire. Every (black) person I talked to agreed that there needs to be a ceasefire and the killing needs to end.
Thank you, Micah, for this analysis. One thing that kept confusing me from the claims coming from Bowman's camp is that their candidate was beaten by "foreign" interests. Yet counter claims had it that he received national support and funds that proportionally were more out of district. Is that true? Meaning, did the money and support he actually get come mainly from non-constituents?
There were two sources of money in this race--direct contributions to the two candidates, and independent outside spending. Bowman was typical of most candidates in that he raised far more of his money from outside his district, 87% according to OpenSecrets.org. Latimer got 64% from out of district (though initially he drew much more from local donors). The outside spending dwarfed the candidates' own warchests, and the vast bulk of that was AIPAC and related "pro-Israel" groups. See https://www.opensecrets.org/races/geography?cycle=2024&id=NY16&spec=N for details. I haven't seen a final breakdown of how much each candidate raised from large vs small donors, but as of end of March, Latimer's money was tilted larger (only 5% from small donors--people giving under $200) vs Bowman's at 22%. Arguably both men were financially supported far more by non-constituents than locals.
Did J St mess up Bowman’s chances? Is that what you are asking? No, I don’t think so. It actually stuck by him for a long time. I’d argue that J Street’s positions throughout the Gaza crisis could have been a tad faster in criticizing how Bibi conducted the war and a tad faster in urging that Biden condition aid on Israel, but by and large its positioning has made sense to me.
Another fabulous piece. I was about to make a comment along these lines, and then my day got the better of me. But this paragraph in the NYT article about Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez and the Blue Dog Democrats said exactly what I would have tried to articulate imperfectly, in response to what emerged for me through reading your piece(s) (which have increased my insight into this race by about 100%):
"But when I asked Gluesenkamp Perez if she thought Ocasio-Cortez possessed the type of working-class perspective that she contends Congress is so sorely lacking, she demurred. “It’s not just your personal experience,” Gluesenkamp Perez said. “It’s who you view as your constituency. Like, who are you there for? Are you there working for ideas? Or are you there working for people?” Because Ocasio-Cortez represents such a solidly blue district — where Democratic presidential candidates regularly receive 70 percent or more of the vote — Gluesenkamp Perez believes that Ocasio-Cortez is working for the former. “If you’re working for ideas, you are much more vulnerable to sort of activist capture than if you have the nuance of individual people,” she continued. “And people that work for a living are very diverse, and most of them are not socialists.”
Not sure about AOC, but that general sensibility came through, for me, in your portrait of Jamaal. He seems very clearly to care about 'humanity" writ large, in an admirable way. However, he doesn't seem to give much of the time of day to the specific humans that surround him (and that yelling about "me, me, me" definitely didn't help, either). If you don't blend those two - a deep-rootedness in ideals that transcend time and place, PLUS an equally deep-rooted commitment to the people around you now, however fleeting they (and their support) might be, then you're going to have a lot of ideology without a lot of real human connection.
This is what struck me, in reading your piece: so much high-mindedness and passion, so little true connection. I hope we're entering a phase in politics where those two might be more consciously blended.
1) The value of this exercise. Frankly, I think post mortems ought to happen for successful campaigns as well (which is perhaps how you prevent unforced errors in reelection bids). Win or lose, there's no such thing as a perfect campaign, so it's important to evaluate where things went wrong and where things went right. So thanks for contributing to that with a local perspective. Nearly everyone else writing about the topic doesn't know much, if anything, about the particularities of Westchester County.
2) The maps argument! I see it put forth mostly by people who don't know what the maps looked like in 2020 vs 2022 vs 2024. It is nonsense. These people need to stop playing. The current map was an improvement over the 2022 map. Period.
3) There are A LOT of areas where the campaign could have done better strategically and where Jamaal could have done better personally. I tend to attribute his mistakes to being a political newcomer. Because he wasn't a politician or even a political insider (to my knowledge) before making his way to Congress, I think he eschewed some of the important things that needed to happen such as fundraising and building relationships with the local Democrats (although they certainly share in the blame for not even attempting to making nice in many cases). In addition to some of the mistakes you described, I have some criticisms of my own. (For example, why was there no focus on early vote by mail? Latimer's side focused HEAVILY on that, which clearly had the desired effect.)
All that said, my big area of disagreement is... the impact of the AIPAC spending. (You knew this already.) I think Summer Lee is actually the perfect example of how AIPAC's spending made a big, big impact on this campaign. AIPAC basically sat her campaign out. (CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/21/politics/summer-lee-primary-pennsylvania-12/index.html) Granted, the reason they didn't jump in on that race was because she started off in a strong position in her district (which is why they sat out NY16 in 2022).
But even given Jamaal's weaknesses at the start of the campaign, at the end of the day, AIPAC's messaging in the race was very little about Israel or Hamas or antisemitism. It was: "Jamaal is hurting you, everyday person in this district. He doesn't support the President and he doesn't care about you." The story you told about Deborah is illustrative of exactly that. The constant barrage of AIPAC ads sowed enough distrust among Bowman's supporters that it effectively neutralized them. Maybe a few switched and voted for Latimer, but most of them just didn't vote at all. The people who stuck with him were less enthusiastic in their support., like Deborah and her nephew.
We *know* that political advertising is potent: that's why campaigns spend so much on it. That's why AIPAC spent so much on it in this campaign. The fact that Bowman and his campaign made mistakes that contributed to the loss doesn't negate the impact of $23 million. It's both/and.
I wonder if Deborah's nephew thought Jamaal was a liar back in September. I suspect he did not.
First-time reader and I appreciate your piece, Micah. Since I’m not a resident of the district, I’ll adhere to your analysis the local specificities. I also think these Squad members should be compiling more money during election off-season.
At the same time, I do have to pushback on you understating the impact of AIPAC and its influence. You probably saw Rep. Massie’s recent comments about how each Congressional member has an AIPAC babysitter which is something no Palestinian organization can ever come close to competing with at this time. AIPAC only wants stanch supporters of Israel in Congress - evidenced by Bowman voting for several hawkish pro-Israel bills and still getting slandered by them.
Just another two cents - 1. Markos is an absolute hack of the Dem establishment. He rarely disagrees with the leaders now. Since the Fall, he’s done nothing but slander pro-Palestinian protestors at every turn. 2. I find it a little amusing that certain voters would be offended by cursing in this day and age. It has become the norm among mainstream politicians.
Older black folks - many of whom insist on voting on election day itself - are not fans of foul language. I doubt that did him in, but it certainly didn't help the vote margin.
Since I'm already here: My view of that was that he had just about given up and was lashing out at that point. It may or may not have been the case. I doubt he sees that as his proudest moment in this campaign.
I am a resident of the district and a strong supporter of Jamaal Bowman. Yes, mistakes were made by the Congressman and by his team, but when I went door-to-door canvassing or stood outside supermarkets talking to potential voters or joined a phone bank or even spoke friends and neighbors, the concerns people expressed almost exactly mirrored the charges (always at least disingenuous, sometimes downright lies) I saw in the three or four AIPAC-generated flyers arriving in my mailbox every day. When I got the flood of "Bowman voted against the infrastructure bill. Bowman is against bridges, clean water, etc" flyers, people said, "He voted against the infrastructure bill." When the flyers turned to (incredibly) implying Bowman would take away Social Security benefits, elderly Black women in Mt. Vernon told us they wouldn't vote for him because, "He'll take away my Social Security." When the flyers said Bowman is against President Biden, that's what I heard from people I spoke to ("I need a candidate who will support Biden"--btw, Bowman voted with Biden 93.8% of the time). So to conclude that AIPAC money wasn't a huge, defining factor in this race is, from my on-the-ground experience, incorrect.
Iris: I am not saying the AIPAC onslaught had no effect. It was 100% predictable. Which is why I am arguing that you can’t take risky votes and radical positions unless you continuously do the work of building and maintaining a base that agrees with those positions. Jamaal didn’t do that, instead choosing to align with national left figures and movements with no significant base in the district AND to actively disregard a big and influential part of the district itself. The fact that people could be swayed by simplistic distortions shows he hadn’t done the necessary work! I have yet to hear from one staff person who worked with him denying the accuracy of anything I’ve written (other than my goof on the Yonkers primary, where he didn’t even endorse Coleman but stayed neutral, to the same effect). Instead several top people have all confirmed to me the accuracy of what I wrote.
I agree with your assessment in general about base-building, but I am still interested in the J Street angle I keep asking about here. I am genuinely interested in it. Thanks.
Thanks Micah. Not sure what exactly I read into your post (reader response theory) but I’m left with the sense that reactionary politics is what fuels partisan politics—and it takes a great deal of skill and time to build broad-based inclusive coalitions.
There are some important notes on retail politics here and I have also been critical of the Squad’s national program. But let’s also be real that it is obvious that J Street is attempting to, through reporting by Marans and others, establish that only they can protect members of congress from AIPAC. But J Street has a major problem: it supported the bear hug of Bibi at the precise moment when all of their warnings about the instability of Likud’s policies came true. That frankly torched its credibility on the left. And sure maybe they could have stopped the bleeding against Bowman, but that is really rich given that they pulled their endorsement instead of fighting to keep a decent man in politics.
J Street has no credibility among people who don’t think it was appropriate to give Bibi a blank check. Retconning this idea that you could have protected Bowman is fantasy.
If J street had been in the ceasefire camp early, they would’ve had a much better position in shaping the left’s response and reigning in the fantasies in those networks. As it is, they allied with AIPAC to bluntly teach the left a lesson that will not be heard.
You are too wise by half. I didn't say that J St could have protected Bowman all by itself, nor did I say that I agreed with its overall strategy! But anyway, what do you know, you obviously don't live in this district.
Look I am not a denialist about local politics. I think Summer Lee is an excellent example of a better way forward. But it is very clear through Marans’ reporting that J Street played a national, not just local, role in this or is *at least* using the outcome as part of a national credibility-building project. Do you disagree with that assessment? Is that not happening at all?
I want your comment on the J Street stuff. It seems obvious to me that their national strategy is to convince lefty members of congress that only they can protect them from AIPAC. True/false/don’t know?
I can't speak to J Street's "strategy"; but I will tell you why I, who have been a J Street Supporter since its earliest days, believe their policy approach has been right on the merits.
A description of what I think needs to happen to constructively resolve the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians can be found here (https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/israel-and-the-palestinians). The quick summary is that I think the U.S. needs to pressure Israel to pull back from most of the settlements, essentially along the lines of what was proposed at Taba. I would support not only making continued U.S. aid conditional on such a pull back, but I would even support the U.S. imposing sanctions against Israel if it failed to do so. Arguably, such a stance would even be to the left of J Street.
At the same time, I think J Street's hesitancy toward calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza has been right on the merits. I believe that Israel is fully in the right to conduct a war against Hamas in the wake of October 7th, and as someone who doesn't have a son or daughter at risk in that war, I am hesitant to impose requirements on how Israel conducts that war that would make it significantly more dangerous for their soldiers.
As horrible as the war has been for Palestinians, the blame for that lies almost entirely on Hamas, not only for October 7th, not only for the taking of hostages, but also for deliberately causing the deaths of Palestinian civilians by not allowing them to shelter in tunnels, by intentionally placing its fighters in buildings like hospitals and schools, by attacking aid convoys, by continuing to fire missiles at Israel, and more.
The war in Gaza ends with the return of the hostages and the unconditional surrender of Hamas' leadership, just as the World Wars ended with the unconditional surrender by the Germans and Japanese. I don't want J Street making policies in response to either the left or AIPAC. I want them making policy on what's best for the U.S., for Israel, and for the Palestinians.
Bringing it back to the subject of this piece, J Street was 100% right to withdraw its support for Bowman. We want to support U.S. leaders who will act in the best long term interest of the U.S., Israel, and Palestinians by having the U.S. exert pressure to establish a durable peace in the area through a two state solution that gives Palestinians a viable state where they will have the self-determination and freedom to build better lives for their families, while providing Israelis with complete assurance that this state offers no threat to their security.
Bowman's adoption of the left's ridiculous settler-colonial framework made him an obstacle to a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians. It's undoubtedly a good thing that his days in Congress are coming to an end.
This is incoherent. It was obviously not in the cards from 10/7 on to destroy Hamas militarily, shelter 2 million civilians in tunnels, to get the hostages in negotiations with no survivability of Hamas, etc. Absolutely none of that is realistic, and it certainly wasn’t realistic while empowering post-9/11 terror huckster Netanyahu. So J Street chose the fantasy that they could back Bibi and somehow not get ethnic cleansing. Dumb as shit. Obviously.
The idea that J Street has somehow "backed Bibi" is ridiculous. J Street leaders continue to believe, as I do, that Netanyahu is the most catastrophically disastrous leader in Israeli history.
But supporting Israel in the war against Hamas is not backing Bibi. For all intents and purposes, everyone in Israel supports that war, including Bibi's biggest enemies.
The fact is that as long as Hamas continues its war against Israel, Israel will continue its war against Hamas. And since Hamas fighters choose to live among the civilian population, that means civilians will continue to die. It's a terrible situation, but it's not going to change until Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages. Anyone who values the lives of Palestinians should be doing everything in their power to make that happen, no matter how unrealistic they believe it to be.
And the support for the war that you have outlined is precisely what has made J Street discredited among those who want the ethnic cleansing to stop. Just as all those credulous liberals who backed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, J Street torched their credibility with anyone who isn’t a liberal hawk.
That is what you catastrophically don’t understand. Yes it absolutely was backing Bibi. That is what the US was doing and exactly what J Street functionally demanded of the congressional left in the weeks after 10/7. The left grassroots thankfully pushed them to overcome that insane position but J Street shat the bed. Sorry!
I don't know what to tell you MG. If you believe that supporting Israel in the wake of October 7 was "backing Bibi", you simply don't understand Israel (or those who support it) at all.
The only way to help the Palestinians is to convince Israel to pull out of the West Bank and allow a demilitarized Palestinian state to emerge. And that will only happen if Israel knows it can count on the United States to support it's legitimate security needs.
For J Street to play a constructive role, it absolutely had to stop supporting Bowman, someone who has lost the plot because they projected their view of their own country's history on a conflict that has essentially nothing in common with it.
And if that means alienating the hard left, that's hardly a reason not to do it. Beyond being a force helping to elect Donald Trump, the reality is that you're completely irrelevant in American politics anyway.
6. It’s perhaps foolhardy to try to add anything substantive in a few sentences to that political third rail, Gaza, but I will try. First, the requisite disclaimer (but one wonders why this is constantly necessary): coming from a Christian tradition committed to total non-violence, the Hamas attack was appalling, and merited (and received) immediate condemnation. But it’s mythological/ideological to speak of “stateless terror” without also recognizing the “state-sanctioned monopoly on purported ‘justified’ violence.” What I find troubling are the constant suggestions that the failings here were that Jamaal was too radical. (It’s worth pointing out that for many Muslims, Jamaal was not nearly radical enough, as evidenced by repeated comments that Palestinians who had lost families members in Gaza made at multiple events at the Andalusia School in Yonkers, as well as by the couple of hundred “Within Our Lifetime” pro-Palestinian protesters at the AOC/Bernie/Jamaal rally in the Bronx.) Who, really, is being “radical” here? Speaking from first hand experience working in criminal-justice circles, I remain perplexed and frankly deeply discouraged by how Jewish communities that historically have been the most supportive of communities of color in social justice pursuits could so easily abandon that alliance based on what clearly seems to be an “ideological” (in the technical sense of that term) misidentification of Jamaal as being anti-Semitic. That seems to me to be more radical, a losing of one’s way, an abandonment of a tradition that has been one of the few bright spots in the justice-seeking world. How is it even possible that Jamaal was condemned simply for suggesting that his views on Palestinian humanity were in fact consistent with (prophetic) Jewishess, as though that was not a legitimate question to ask, even within that tradition? (And why did mainstream Jewish voices similarly dismiss JVP and other kindred voices as not even being worthy of talking to?) For somebody such as Jamaal, committed to peace and our common humanity, he certainly could and should have done better (even if only for “political” reasons). But his views are really no different from those held by people such as Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet (see https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/netanyahu-s-toxic-leadership-will-lead-to-end-of-zionism-says-former-shin-bet-chief/vi-BB1oOiCS?ocid=BingNewsSerp), who argues that Hamas cannot be eliminated, and that Israeli security is impossible to imagine without the end of the (in his words) “occupation.” Say what one wants about Jamaal’s profanity, but surely he is right in arguing that it’s far more obscene to be complicit in retaliatory violence that has absolutely no chance of bringing long-term security and peace to anybody in that region.
There are lots of other things I would want to say (but I am not a substack columnist, only a commentator, even if some might think I am pretending to be otherwise). But what I would wish for is an account of not how Jamaal lost his way, but how we, in Westchester, might have done so ourselves. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that from the standpoint of equity — racial, economic, indeed in virtually every way — we may never quite have been there. To take but one facet of this larger issue, there’s a reason why Richard Kahlenberg uses a Westchester suburb as a case study in his Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't. An examination of the small “p” political (Jamaal’s loss) seems incomplete without an analysis of the big “P” Political. Jamaal — alone among virtually every other Westchester politician, white or Black — was willing to imagine a different, more just, and more equal, world. And for those of us committed to deep-reaching justice, it’s not that Jamaal abandoned us, or even (although this is truer) that we abandoned him, but that we continue to fail in our attempts to create the kind of world everybody deserves.
Steve, you’ve made many interesting points. Since I’m traveling on vacation this week I will be brief. First, I have no argument with you that as a progressive I’d very much like my neighbors to all agree with me (or you) on a host of issues. Getting more to do so is the hard work of organizing; meeting people and here they are and trying to move them. Second, it’s seems you agree with me that Jamaal was out of alignment with the district and chose to become more so. My citing Summer Lee as a counter example was meant to show that a “Squad” member could figure out how to retain good enough relations with both her local political establishment and Jewish enclaves like Squirrel Hill that she could be a welcome guest at the groundbreaking of their new building; not that her district and ours are the same. One conclusion from Lee’s ongoing success is that Congress members with Squad like politics have to come from more left-friendly districts. Another is that style and skill matter and Jamaal didn’t have to end up in such a broken place vis a vis Westchester Jews.
Lastly the idea that Jamaal was not radical enough for our district’s Muslims is meant to prove what? He also wasn’t radical enough for our district’s pacifists. Unfortunately elections are about building majorities, not meeting the ideological needs of small groups.
I’ll repeat my main point again: there was a different path available for someone with something close to Jamaal’s politics — especially on domestic issues like reparations and Green New Deal to hold the seat, but he chose not to follow that path and undermined his own ability to get reelected.
3. Summer Lee is mentioned as somebody who has navigated the political terrain better than Jamaal. But the demographics of Pittsburgh are quite different than those of Westchester County — in general it’s less affluent (about 20% so), the median age is almost a decade younger (34 vs 41), the Jewish community is significantly smaller (3% vs. 10%+), and it has had a Black mayor who ran on issues of racial and economic inequality (something George Latimer has never done). Admittedly this is comparing the (greater-metro-area) city to the county, and there might be slightly different data elsewhere, but it seems to me that these differences are politically significant, and make the comparison less helpful.
4. You unfortunately left the “Off the Hook” party too soon. Yes, there were quite a few young outside-the-district organizers there at the beginning, but at least when Jamaal gave his rousing speech (and he did stay afterwards to talk, engaging in real conversations, leaving not long before I, who almost never leave a party early, did) the crowd was mostly composed of Black activists from local communities (New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, White Plains). Looking again at the video I took of his speech, the room was hardly “nearly empty,” and every one of the 23 people in front of me (with many more in back) are Black. Not that the specific details matter that much, but this anecdote seems to feed into the misperceptions discussed in the next point.
5. Multiple respondents speak of “constituent services ... lacking,” and “so little true connection.” It is certainly true that Jamaal did not have a cozy relationship with even Black elected officials in Westchester (there has always been a kind of resentment for him having come, as an educator, from outside the political establishment; one often heard that he “never paid his dues”). But the idea that he had no connection to the community is simply inaccurate. It’s not just that Jamaal would be mobbed (adulated, indeed, in a way that I have never seen George admired, anywhere) at the annual African-American (food and heritage) festivals at Kensico Dam, attended by thousands of Black Westchester residents, but that he showed up in Black communities in ways that other politicians didn’t, and don’t. That’s true of multiple events during the campaign (for example, at a gun-violence/education-focused event in Mt. Vernon recently), but also for years ahead of this (including occasions where I was, if not the only white person in the crowd, as you describe, a distinct minority). To be sure, Jamaal lacked adequate connection with the political class, including Black electeds, but he had connections in impacted Black communities that most of us never show up in. (On one point we do certainly agree — Jamaal “never built a real base in the district’s black churches, whose politics and style are more moderate than his,” this latter reality being disturbing to me, especially in the ways it has held back efforts to achieve restorative justice in a system of incarceration right here in Westchester County that continues to have startlingly disparate impacts on communities of color. Damon Jones, AJ Woodson, and Robert Baskerville of Black Westchester get this absolutely right.)
It’s important to be having this conversation. I always look forward to reading your (Micah’s) reflections, and now the responses, on matters political and otherwise. I’d like to join this exchange of perspectives. Like Iris, I write as a resident of this district who was and remains a strong supporter of Jamaal. I agree that “mistakes were made,” and not just in that passive voice. (Like Micah, I often had conversation with Jamaal during the campaign urging him to say and do things differently.) But I don’t think that those mistakes were primarily of the kind outlined in “The Road Not Taken: Hard Truths about Jamaal Bowman’s Loss.”
I’m going to break my response into three parts, to make it a bit more readable.
Part I
1. First of all, after having spent days door knocking and street canvassing, and attending rallies, almost exclusively in Black communities, I agree with everything Iris posted this morning (I might even have said it more emphatically). The attempt to explain away the impact of those mailings by saying that people were susceptible to this because of Jamaal’s failures is too easy of a way out, for the reasons noted below. (It’s a little bit like the media focusing on how Biden lost the debate, which he of course did, while not in the same breath at least also mentioning the Trumpian lies, ones which some might even say pale in comparison to the cynical AIPAC misrepresentations of Jamaal’s record, coming as the latter did with the tacit approval of somebody who liked to present himself as a “progressive” — a true wolf in sheep’s clothing, one might say.)
2. As for the analysis in the original posting, in hindsight one might fault Jamaal for not doing early fund-raising, but he did face the same not-supportive-enough-of-Israel challenge two years ago (the majority of the flyers sent out by the non-Jewish Catherine Parker were of the “I stand with Israel” variety; her views then are almost interchangeable with George’s today [see https://jewishlink.news/catherine-parker-is-coming-for-rep-jamaal-bowman-s-congressional-seat/]), and he prevailed then. Not knowing that October 7th was coming it is/was not unreasonable for him to focus on other issues rather than spending time raising money for an unexpected challenge. That’s true both because his base has historically not been monied but also because he was focused on bringing change to impacted communities. There’s something to be said for re-imagining the political by being less traditionally political, at least given the realities as everybody understood them last summer. (Or are you suggesting that George would have run, and won, without October 7th, and without AIPAC?)
Micah I appreciate this reporting, immensely. But I have to admit, it sounds a little like lefties will only be tolerated in congress if they are exceptionally talented at retail, willing to bend the knee on fundraising, and will... keep the door cracked for Israel to torture kids. (I realize that's not the group's perception of that bill, but my god. Look at what you're saying here.) And if they're not, they're going to get thrown overboard for a right-wing Dem that had by all accounts vastly worse baggage - and worse, the DC Dems power structure will repeatedly spike the ball in lefties faces and do everything they can to make sure lefties are absolutely not a part of the coalition they are remotely interested in. Look at the bigger picture here. I understand Bowman made some mistakes. But when we look at poll after poll showing Biden struggling with younger and more diverse voters, this kind of thing is precisely why. It's not that young voters are prioritizing Gaza even, it's more perceptual. They are getting the idea their cynicism is entirely justified. If you tell groups of voters to fuck off repeatedly, eventually they will.
Dan--Summer Lee shows you can do this far more successfully. (By the way, on the McCollum bill, people like me and the whole J St apparatus defended Bowman's decision to sign-on. My point was that he did that without any advance consultation or heads-up, needlessly making ripples that grew into waves. As a 30-plus-year resident of this district, it was all predictable.) You want more lefties in Congress? There are no shortcuts.
So can you engage with an honest assessment of just how much J Street fucked Bowman or not? From outside the district it is opaque. But it sure seems like this report and the constant stream of J Street quotes and sources from Marans are delivering the message that only J Street can protect lefty members of Congress. Care to actually comment on that?
Micah, I love the base building theme. I would not minimize the impact of money (including Bowman’s unnecessary lack thereof) in our politics ala Citizens United or the role of Trumpian-type falsehoods including blood-liable-esque accusations of anti-Semitism. And the impact of these is as you say is multiplied by the lack of base building. Let’s hope the left in opposition now rises to that occasion in the 16th and in the wider NY political area.
The district is completely different, but I think a lot about how Hank Johnson has become a reliable supporter of Palestinian rights on the Hill and he hasn't really ever faced a credible challenge. He himself toppled Cynthia McKinney, who very much had a Jamaal Bowman devil-may-care attitude at times, but since AIPAC helped in that race, it has been pretty powerless over the district. Above all else, building a relationship with your constituents is key. Maybe it's different in that district, but in most districts in America the Middle East isn't going to decide your fate, but what's happening in Middle America might.
Thank you for the analysis on Bowman's loss. However, no thanks for the advice to Joe Biden. Biden is the best person to beat Trump and that is the defining challenge of this year. Don't turn one bad night into a full on unforced error.
Joe Biden is a good president. He is doing great things for the economy and all Americans. And he will beat Trump if we support him. Let's do that.
If Biden doesn't withdraw, of course I'll support him too. But we're in a fluid moment right now and he is far from the person he was four years ago.
Would like to read your longer take on Biden.
This is an excellent article - and indeed, a hard truth. I was one of those people who came from outside NY16 to help GOTV for Bowman -- in Yonkers. The closer we got to Election Day -- and especially on that day itself -- I could tell that Bowman was speaking to a small sliver of leftists mostly from outside the district. As an outsider, I don't know the district like you. But nothing you wrote surprises me. I joined Jews for Jamaal, but I did not canvass with them because they were further north in the Jewish parts of the district. I stayed in Yonkers, which is more accessible by public transportation. I learned from people I spoke with that constituent services were lacking. After the rally with Bernie and AOC more than a few black voters told me they were offended by Bowman's language. Last year I wrote an article for The Revealer, "What Does BDS Really Mean" (it's available on-line) and in that article I discuss Bowman and his principled refusal to endorse BDS. As he moved hard left, he embraced BDS and talked more about AIPAC than what he was doing and wanted to do to improve the lives of his constituents. From reading Sifry, I now understand the depths of Bowman's misjudgments.
An interesting note: when I canvassed residents of Yonkers I didn't lead with AIPAC or Israel/Palestine -- but with local issues. Toward the end of talking to people I often raised the problem of AIPAC's money and Bowman's support for an immediate ceasefire. Every (black) person I talked to agreed that there needs to be a ceasefire and the killing needs to end.
Thank you, Micah, for this analysis. One thing that kept confusing me from the claims coming from Bowman's camp is that their candidate was beaten by "foreign" interests. Yet counter claims had it that he received national support and funds that proportionally were more out of district. Is that true? Meaning, did the money and support he actually get come mainly from non-constituents?
There were two sources of money in this race--direct contributions to the two candidates, and independent outside spending. Bowman was typical of most candidates in that he raised far more of his money from outside his district, 87% according to OpenSecrets.org. Latimer got 64% from out of district (though initially he drew much more from local donors). The outside spending dwarfed the candidates' own warchests, and the vast bulk of that was AIPAC and related "pro-Israel" groups. See https://www.opensecrets.org/races/geography?cycle=2024&id=NY16&spec=N for details. I haven't seen a final breakdown of how much each candidate raised from large vs small donors, but as of end of March, Latimer's money was tilted larger (only 5% from small donors--people giving under $200) vs Bowman's at 22%. Arguably both men were financially supported far more by non-constituents than locals.
Did J St mess up Bowman’s chances? Is that what you are asking? No, I don’t think so. It actually stuck by him for a long time. I’d argue that J Street’s positions throughout the Gaza crisis could have been a tad faster in criticizing how Bibi conducted the war and a tad faster in urging that Biden condition aid on Israel, but by and large its positioning has made sense to me.
Another fabulous piece. I was about to make a comment along these lines, and then my day got the better of me. But this paragraph in the NYT article about Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez and the Blue Dog Democrats said exactly what I would have tried to articulate imperfectly, in response to what emerged for me through reading your piece(s) (which have increased my insight into this race by about 100%):
"But when I asked Gluesenkamp Perez if she thought Ocasio-Cortez possessed the type of working-class perspective that she contends Congress is so sorely lacking, she demurred. “It’s not just your personal experience,” Gluesenkamp Perez said. “It’s who you view as your constituency. Like, who are you there for? Are you there working for ideas? Or are you there working for people?” Because Ocasio-Cortez represents such a solidly blue district — where Democratic presidential candidates regularly receive 70 percent or more of the vote — Gluesenkamp Perez believes that Ocasio-Cortez is working for the former. “If you’re working for ideas, you are much more vulnerable to sort of activist capture than if you have the nuance of individual people,” she continued. “And people that work for a living are very diverse, and most of them are not socialists.”
Not sure about AOC, but that general sensibility came through, for me, in your portrait of Jamaal. He seems very clearly to care about 'humanity" writ large, in an admirable way. However, he doesn't seem to give much of the time of day to the specific humans that surround him (and that yelling about "me, me, me" definitely didn't help, either). If you don't blend those two - a deep-rootedness in ideals that transcend time and place, PLUS an equally deep-rooted commitment to the people around you now, however fleeting they (and their support) might be, then you're going to have a lot of ideology without a lot of real human connection.
This is what struck me, in reading your piece: so much high-mindedness and passion, so little true connection. I hope we're entering a phase in politics where those two might be more consciously blended.
I'll start with where I agree:
1) The value of this exercise. Frankly, I think post mortems ought to happen for successful campaigns as well (which is perhaps how you prevent unforced errors in reelection bids). Win or lose, there's no such thing as a perfect campaign, so it's important to evaluate where things went wrong and where things went right. So thanks for contributing to that with a local perspective. Nearly everyone else writing about the topic doesn't know much, if anything, about the particularities of Westchester County.
2) The maps argument! I see it put forth mostly by people who don't know what the maps looked like in 2020 vs 2022 vs 2024. It is nonsense. These people need to stop playing. The current map was an improvement over the 2022 map. Period.
3) There are A LOT of areas where the campaign could have done better strategically and where Jamaal could have done better personally. I tend to attribute his mistakes to being a political newcomer. Because he wasn't a politician or even a political insider (to my knowledge) before making his way to Congress, I think he eschewed some of the important things that needed to happen such as fundraising and building relationships with the local Democrats (although they certainly share in the blame for not even attempting to making nice in many cases). In addition to some of the mistakes you described, I have some criticisms of my own. (For example, why was there no focus on early vote by mail? Latimer's side focused HEAVILY on that, which clearly had the desired effect.)
All that said, my big area of disagreement is... the impact of the AIPAC spending. (You knew this already.) I think Summer Lee is actually the perfect example of how AIPAC's spending made a big, big impact on this campaign. AIPAC basically sat her campaign out. (CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/21/politics/summer-lee-primary-pennsylvania-12/index.html) Granted, the reason they didn't jump in on that race was because she started off in a strong position in her district (which is why they sat out NY16 in 2022).
But even given Jamaal's weaknesses at the start of the campaign, at the end of the day, AIPAC's messaging in the race was very little about Israel or Hamas or antisemitism. It was: "Jamaal is hurting you, everyday person in this district. He doesn't support the President and he doesn't care about you." The story you told about Deborah is illustrative of exactly that. The constant barrage of AIPAC ads sowed enough distrust among Bowman's supporters that it effectively neutralized them. Maybe a few switched and voted for Latimer, but most of them just didn't vote at all. The people who stuck with him were less enthusiastic in their support., like Deborah and her nephew.
We *know* that political advertising is potent: that's why campaigns spend so much on it. That's why AIPAC spent so much on it in this campaign. The fact that Bowman and his campaign made mistakes that contributed to the loss doesn't negate the impact of $23 million. It's both/and.
I wonder if Deborah's nephew thought Jamaal was a liar back in September. I suspect he did not.
First-time reader and I appreciate your piece, Micah. Since I’m not a resident of the district, I’ll adhere to your analysis the local specificities. I also think these Squad members should be compiling more money during election off-season.
At the same time, I do have to pushback on you understating the impact of AIPAC and its influence. You probably saw Rep. Massie’s recent comments about how each Congressional member has an AIPAC babysitter which is something no Palestinian organization can ever come close to competing with at this time. AIPAC only wants stanch supporters of Israel in Congress - evidenced by Bowman voting for several hawkish pro-Israel bills and still getting slandered by them.
Just another two cents - 1. Markos is an absolute hack of the Dem establishment. He rarely disagrees with the leaders now. Since the Fall, he’s done nothing but slander pro-Palestinian protestors at every turn. 2. I find it a little amusing that certain voters would be offended by cursing in this day and age. It has become the norm among mainstream politicians.
Older black folks - many of whom insist on voting on election day itself - are not fans of foul language. I doubt that did him in, but it certainly didn't help the vote margin.
Since I'm already here: My view of that was that he had just about given up and was lashing out at that point. It may or may not have been the case. I doubt he sees that as his proudest moment in this campaign.
I am a resident of the district and a strong supporter of Jamaal Bowman. Yes, mistakes were made by the Congressman and by his team, but when I went door-to-door canvassing or stood outside supermarkets talking to potential voters or joined a phone bank or even spoke friends and neighbors, the concerns people expressed almost exactly mirrored the charges (always at least disingenuous, sometimes downright lies) I saw in the three or four AIPAC-generated flyers arriving in my mailbox every day. When I got the flood of "Bowman voted against the infrastructure bill. Bowman is against bridges, clean water, etc" flyers, people said, "He voted against the infrastructure bill." When the flyers turned to (incredibly) implying Bowman would take away Social Security benefits, elderly Black women in Mt. Vernon told us they wouldn't vote for him because, "He'll take away my Social Security." When the flyers said Bowman is against President Biden, that's what I heard from people I spoke to ("I need a candidate who will support Biden"--btw, Bowman voted with Biden 93.8% of the time). So to conclude that AIPAC money wasn't a huge, defining factor in this race is, from my on-the-ground experience, incorrect.
Iris: I am not saying the AIPAC onslaught had no effect. It was 100% predictable. Which is why I am arguing that you can’t take risky votes and radical positions unless you continuously do the work of building and maintaining a base that agrees with those positions. Jamaal didn’t do that, instead choosing to align with national left figures and movements with no significant base in the district AND to actively disregard a big and influential part of the district itself. The fact that people could be swayed by simplistic distortions shows he hadn’t done the necessary work! I have yet to hear from one staff person who worked with him denying the accuracy of anything I’ve written (other than my goof on the Yonkers primary, where he didn’t even endorse Coleman but stayed neutral, to the same effect). Instead several top people have all confirmed to me the accuracy of what I wrote.
I agree with your assessment in general about base-building, but I am still interested in the J Street angle I keep asking about here. I am genuinely interested in it. Thanks.
Thanks Micah. Not sure what exactly I read into your post (reader response theory) but I’m left with the sense that reactionary politics is what fuels partisan politics—and it takes a great deal of skill and time to build broad-based inclusive coalitions.
There are some important notes on retail politics here and I have also been critical of the Squad’s national program. But let’s also be real that it is obvious that J Street is attempting to, through reporting by Marans and others, establish that only they can protect members of congress from AIPAC. But J Street has a major problem: it supported the bear hug of Bibi at the precise moment when all of their warnings about the instability of Likud’s policies came true. That frankly torched its credibility on the left. And sure maybe they could have stopped the bleeding against Bowman, but that is really rich given that they pulled their endorsement instead of fighting to keep a decent man in politics.
J Street has no credibility among people who don’t think it was appropriate to give Bibi a blank check. Retconning this idea that you could have protected Bowman is fantasy.
If J street had been in the ceasefire camp early, they would’ve had a much better position in shaping the left’s response and reigning in the fantasies in those networks. As it is, they allied with AIPAC to bluntly teach the left a lesson that will not be heard.
You are too wise by half. I didn't say that J St could have protected Bowman all by itself, nor did I say that I agreed with its overall strategy! But anyway, what do you know, you obviously don't live in this district.
Look I am not a denialist about local politics. I think Summer Lee is an excellent example of a better way forward. But it is very clear through Marans’ reporting that J Street played a national, not just local, role in this or is *at least* using the outcome as part of a national credibility-building project. Do you disagree with that assessment? Is that not happening at all?
Is my comment really so beneath consideration?
I’ve lost track of which comment you want me to consider!
I want your comment on the J Street stuff. It seems obvious to me that their national strategy is to convince lefty members of congress that only they can protect them from AIPAC. True/false/don’t know?
I can't speak to J Street's "strategy"; but I will tell you why I, who have been a J Street Supporter since its earliest days, believe their policy approach has been right on the merits.
A description of what I think needs to happen to constructively resolve the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians can be found here (https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/israel-and-the-palestinians). The quick summary is that I think the U.S. needs to pressure Israel to pull back from most of the settlements, essentially along the lines of what was proposed at Taba. I would support not only making continued U.S. aid conditional on such a pull back, but I would even support the U.S. imposing sanctions against Israel if it failed to do so. Arguably, such a stance would even be to the left of J Street.
At the same time, I think J Street's hesitancy toward calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza has been right on the merits. I believe that Israel is fully in the right to conduct a war against Hamas in the wake of October 7th, and as someone who doesn't have a son or daughter at risk in that war, I am hesitant to impose requirements on how Israel conducts that war that would make it significantly more dangerous for their soldiers.
As horrible as the war has been for Palestinians, the blame for that lies almost entirely on Hamas, not only for October 7th, not only for the taking of hostages, but also for deliberately causing the deaths of Palestinian civilians by not allowing them to shelter in tunnels, by intentionally placing its fighters in buildings like hospitals and schools, by attacking aid convoys, by continuing to fire missiles at Israel, and more.
The war in Gaza ends with the return of the hostages and the unconditional surrender of Hamas' leadership, just as the World Wars ended with the unconditional surrender by the Germans and Japanese. I don't want J Street making policies in response to either the left or AIPAC. I want them making policy on what's best for the U.S., for Israel, and for the Palestinians.
Bringing it back to the subject of this piece, J Street was 100% right to withdraw its support for Bowman. We want to support U.S. leaders who will act in the best long term interest of the U.S., Israel, and Palestinians by having the U.S. exert pressure to establish a durable peace in the area through a two state solution that gives Palestinians a viable state where they will have the self-determination and freedom to build better lives for their families, while providing Israelis with complete assurance that this state offers no threat to their security.
Bowman's adoption of the left's ridiculous settler-colonial framework made him an obstacle to a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians. It's undoubtedly a good thing that his days in Congress are coming to an end.
This is incoherent. It was obviously not in the cards from 10/7 on to destroy Hamas militarily, shelter 2 million civilians in tunnels, to get the hostages in negotiations with no survivability of Hamas, etc. Absolutely none of that is realistic, and it certainly wasn’t realistic while empowering post-9/11 terror huckster Netanyahu. So J Street chose the fantasy that they could back Bibi and somehow not get ethnic cleansing. Dumb as shit. Obviously.
The idea that J Street has somehow "backed Bibi" is ridiculous. J Street leaders continue to believe, as I do, that Netanyahu is the most catastrophically disastrous leader in Israeli history.
But supporting Israel in the war against Hamas is not backing Bibi. For all intents and purposes, everyone in Israel supports that war, including Bibi's biggest enemies.
The fact is that as long as Hamas continues its war against Israel, Israel will continue its war against Hamas. And since Hamas fighters choose to live among the civilian population, that means civilians will continue to die. It's a terrible situation, but it's not going to change until Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages. Anyone who values the lives of Palestinians should be doing everything in their power to make that happen, no matter how unrealistic they believe it to be.
And the support for the war that you have outlined is precisely what has made J Street discredited among those who want the ethnic cleansing to stop. Just as all those credulous liberals who backed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, J Street torched their credibility with anyone who isn’t a liberal hawk.
That is what you catastrophically don’t understand. Yes it absolutely was backing Bibi. That is what the US was doing and exactly what J Street functionally demanded of the congressional left in the weeks after 10/7. The left grassroots thankfully pushed them to overcome that insane position but J Street shat the bed. Sorry!
I don't know what to tell you MG. If you believe that supporting Israel in the wake of October 7 was "backing Bibi", you simply don't understand Israel (or those who support it) at all.
The only way to help the Palestinians is to convince Israel to pull out of the West Bank and allow a demilitarized Palestinian state to emerge. And that will only happen if Israel knows it can count on the United States to support it's legitimate security needs.
For J Street to play a constructive role, it absolutely had to stop supporting Bowman, someone who has lost the plot because they projected their view of their own country's history on a conflict that has essentially nothing in common with it.
And if that means alienating the hard left, that's hardly a reason not to do it. Beyond being a force helping to elect Donald Trump, the reality is that you're completely irrelevant in American politics anyway.
Part III
6. It’s perhaps foolhardy to try to add anything substantive in a few sentences to that political third rail, Gaza, but I will try. First, the requisite disclaimer (but one wonders why this is constantly necessary): coming from a Christian tradition committed to total non-violence, the Hamas attack was appalling, and merited (and received) immediate condemnation. But it’s mythological/ideological to speak of “stateless terror” without also recognizing the “state-sanctioned monopoly on purported ‘justified’ violence.” What I find troubling are the constant suggestions that the failings here were that Jamaal was too radical. (It’s worth pointing out that for many Muslims, Jamaal was not nearly radical enough, as evidenced by repeated comments that Palestinians who had lost families members in Gaza made at multiple events at the Andalusia School in Yonkers, as well as by the couple of hundred “Within Our Lifetime” pro-Palestinian protesters at the AOC/Bernie/Jamaal rally in the Bronx.) Who, really, is being “radical” here? Speaking from first hand experience working in criminal-justice circles, I remain perplexed and frankly deeply discouraged by how Jewish communities that historically have been the most supportive of communities of color in social justice pursuits could so easily abandon that alliance based on what clearly seems to be an “ideological” (in the technical sense of that term) misidentification of Jamaal as being anti-Semitic. That seems to me to be more radical, a losing of one’s way, an abandonment of a tradition that has been one of the few bright spots in the justice-seeking world. How is it even possible that Jamaal was condemned simply for suggesting that his views on Palestinian humanity were in fact consistent with (prophetic) Jewishess, as though that was not a legitimate question to ask, even within that tradition? (And why did mainstream Jewish voices similarly dismiss JVP and other kindred voices as not even being worthy of talking to?) For somebody such as Jamaal, committed to peace and our common humanity, he certainly could and should have done better (even if only for “political” reasons). But his views are really no different from those held by people such as Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet (see https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/netanyahu-s-toxic-leadership-will-lead-to-end-of-zionism-says-former-shin-bet-chief/vi-BB1oOiCS?ocid=BingNewsSerp), who argues that Hamas cannot be eliminated, and that Israeli security is impossible to imagine without the end of the (in his words) “occupation.” Say what one wants about Jamaal’s profanity, but surely he is right in arguing that it’s far more obscene to be complicit in retaliatory violence that has absolutely no chance of bringing long-term security and peace to anybody in that region.
There are lots of other things I would want to say (but I am not a substack columnist, only a commentator, even if some might think I am pretending to be otherwise). But what I would wish for is an account of not how Jamaal lost his way, but how we, in Westchester, might have done so ourselves. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that from the standpoint of equity — racial, economic, indeed in virtually every way — we may never quite have been there. To take but one facet of this larger issue, there’s a reason why Richard Kahlenberg uses a Westchester suburb as a case study in his Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't. An examination of the small “p” political (Jamaal’s loss) seems incomplete without an analysis of the big “P” Political. Jamaal — alone among virtually every other Westchester politician, white or Black — was willing to imagine a different, more just, and more equal, world. And for those of us committed to deep-reaching justice, it’s not that Jamaal abandoned us, or even (although this is truer) that we abandoned him, but that we continue to fail in our attempts to create the kind of world everybody deserves.
Steve, you’ve made many interesting points. Since I’m traveling on vacation this week I will be brief. First, I have no argument with you that as a progressive I’d very much like my neighbors to all agree with me (or you) on a host of issues. Getting more to do so is the hard work of organizing; meeting people and here they are and trying to move them. Second, it’s seems you agree with me that Jamaal was out of alignment with the district and chose to become more so. My citing Summer Lee as a counter example was meant to show that a “Squad” member could figure out how to retain good enough relations with both her local political establishment and Jewish enclaves like Squirrel Hill that she could be a welcome guest at the groundbreaking of their new building; not that her district and ours are the same. One conclusion from Lee’s ongoing success is that Congress members with Squad like politics have to come from more left-friendly districts. Another is that style and skill matter and Jamaal didn’t have to end up in such a broken place vis a vis Westchester Jews.
Lastly the idea that Jamaal was not radical enough for our district’s Muslims is meant to prove what? He also wasn’t radical enough for our district’s pacifists. Unfortunately elections are about building majorities, not meeting the ideological needs of small groups.
I’ll repeat my main point again: there was a different path available for someone with something close to Jamaal’s politics — especially on domestic issues like reparations and Green New Deal to hold the seat, but he chose not to follow that path and undermined his own ability to get reelected.
Part II
3. Summer Lee is mentioned as somebody who has navigated the political terrain better than Jamaal. But the demographics of Pittsburgh are quite different than those of Westchester County — in general it’s less affluent (about 20% so), the median age is almost a decade younger (34 vs 41), the Jewish community is significantly smaller (3% vs. 10%+), and it has had a Black mayor who ran on issues of racial and economic inequality (something George Latimer has never done). Admittedly this is comparing the (greater-metro-area) city to the county, and there might be slightly different data elsewhere, but it seems to me that these differences are politically significant, and make the comparison less helpful.
4. You unfortunately left the “Off the Hook” party too soon. Yes, there were quite a few young outside-the-district organizers there at the beginning, but at least when Jamaal gave his rousing speech (and he did stay afterwards to talk, engaging in real conversations, leaving not long before I, who almost never leave a party early, did) the crowd was mostly composed of Black activists from local communities (New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, White Plains). Looking again at the video I took of his speech, the room was hardly “nearly empty,” and every one of the 23 people in front of me (with many more in back) are Black. Not that the specific details matter that much, but this anecdote seems to feed into the misperceptions discussed in the next point.
5. Multiple respondents speak of “constituent services ... lacking,” and “so little true connection.” It is certainly true that Jamaal did not have a cozy relationship with even Black elected officials in Westchester (there has always been a kind of resentment for him having come, as an educator, from outside the political establishment; one often heard that he “never paid his dues”). But the idea that he had no connection to the community is simply inaccurate. It’s not just that Jamaal would be mobbed (adulated, indeed, in a way that I have never seen George admired, anywhere) at the annual African-American (food and heritage) festivals at Kensico Dam, attended by thousands of Black Westchester residents, but that he showed up in Black communities in ways that other politicians didn’t, and don’t. That’s true of multiple events during the campaign (for example, at a gun-violence/education-focused event in Mt. Vernon recently), but also for years ahead of this (including occasions where I was, if not the only white person in the crowd, as you describe, a distinct minority). To be sure, Jamaal lacked adequate connection with the political class, including Black electeds, but he had connections in impacted Black communities that most of us never show up in. (On one point we do certainly agree — Jamaal “never built a real base in the district’s black churches, whose politics and style are more moderate than his,” this latter reality being disturbing to me, especially in the ways it has held back efforts to achieve restorative justice in a system of incarceration right here in Westchester County that continues to have startlingly disparate impacts on communities of color. Damon Jones, AJ Woodson, and Robert Baskerville of Black Westchester get this absolutely right.)
It’s important to be having this conversation. I always look forward to reading your (Micah’s) reflections, and now the responses, on matters political and otherwise. I’d like to join this exchange of perspectives. Like Iris, I write as a resident of this district who was and remains a strong supporter of Jamaal. I agree that “mistakes were made,” and not just in that passive voice. (Like Micah, I often had conversation with Jamaal during the campaign urging him to say and do things differently.) But I don’t think that those mistakes were primarily of the kind outlined in “The Road Not Taken: Hard Truths about Jamaal Bowman’s Loss.”
I’m going to break my response into three parts, to make it a bit more readable.
Part I
1. First of all, after having spent days door knocking and street canvassing, and attending rallies, almost exclusively in Black communities, I agree with everything Iris posted this morning (I might even have said it more emphatically). The attempt to explain away the impact of those mailings by saying that people were susceptible to this because of Jamaal’s failures is too easy of a way out, for the reasons noted below. (It’s a little bit like the media focusing on how Biden lost the debate, which he of course did, while not in the same breath at least also mentioning the Trumpian lies, ones which some might even say pale in comparison to the cynical AIPAC misrepresentations of Jamaal’s record, coming as the latter did with the tacit approval of somebody who liked to present himself as a “progressive” — a true wolf in sheep’s clothing, one might say.)
2. As for the analysis in the original posting, in hindsight one might fault Jamaal for not doing early fund-raising, but he did face the same not-supportive-enough-of-Israel challenge two years ago (the majority of the flyers sent out by the non-Jewish Catherine Parker were of the “I stand with Israel” variety; her views then are almost interchangeable with George’s today [see https://jewishlink.news/catherine-parker-is-coming-for-rep-jamaal-bowman-s-congressional-seat/]), and he prevailed then. Not knowing that October 7th was coming it is/was not unreasonable for him to focus on other issues rather than spending time raising money for an unexpected challenge. That’s true both because his base has historically not been monied but also because he was focused on bringing change to impacted communities. There’s something to be said for re-imagining the political by being less traditionally political, at least given the realities as everybody understood them last summer. (Or are you suggesting that George would have run, and won, without October 7th, and without AIPAC?)