One of the major primaries being discussed in the media is the race in New York’s 16th Congressional District between Rep. Jamaal Bowman of the far-left “squad” and Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a seasoned progressive. The media has portrayed this as a “microcosm of party split over Israel-Hamas conflict,” but that misses the mark.
This is about NY-16 being redistricted from a mix of northern Bronx and some of lower Westchester in 2020 to a predominantly Westchester district with a nub of the Bronx in Co-op City in 2024.
Bowman won the seat in 2020 by securing the seat with many votes from the Bronx and some liberals in Westchester looking for a change and progressive voice. When the 2020 census moved NY-16 into more of a Westchester-focused population in 2022, two Westchester Democratic contenders fought to challenge Bowman, Westchester County Legislator Catherine Parker and Westchester County Legislator Vedat Gashi. Parker and Gashi split the anti-Bowman vote as he had proven himself to be a radical with his chant to “Defund the Police” and vote against the Infrastructure Bill and then lying to his constituents that he actually supported it.
As soon as Bowman won the 2022 Democratic primary, people in Westchester started planning on who to run against him. This website, primarybowman.com, posted ideas and articles including “Beating Bowman,” which called for finding a popular Westchester politician early, to avoid splitting the vote again.
That was in September 2022.
Many local people in Westchester got involved to draft George Latimer to run against Bowman. It was not AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel or any other group. It was a grassroot effort of people who thought that Latimer had years of providing quality service to Westchester constituents, and while a liberal appealed to the more centrist District 16 residents than the extremist Bowman.
The conversations with Latimer began in earnest in April of 2023 and people expected him to make a decision by June. Being a methodical politician, Latimer spent time canvassing the district to see if there was broad support for ousting a sitting Democrat, especially a Black man since Latimer is White. The responses were nearly universal: Bowman is detested in wide swaths of Westchester and politicians and the local Democratic establishment were going to back Latimer.
All of this was months before the barbaric Oct. 7 Hamas attacks against Israel.Latimer was quick to raise lots of money from inside Westchester, which is more affluent than the Bronx former constituents who had voted for Bowman in 2020. Latimer raised almost twice as much money as Bowman in both the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. Even more telling, Bowman did not even have 10% of his donations from inside the district.
Sensing his vulnerability, Bowman latched onto the fundraising of Rep. Rashida Tlaib who is hauling in money from pro-Palestinian groups. Running unopposed, she funnels the excess money to Bowman, essentially buying a district hundreds of miles and four states away from her district in Michigan, funding another anti-Israel vote.
Bowman is faithfully serving his Palestinian money master. He had anti-Zionists at his launch party, voted against Israel in all congressional votes, defended Tlaib’s gross antisemitism on the floor of Congress, and refused to loudly condemn antisemitism on college campuses at a Congressional hearing. Further, he would not attend a rally when antisemitic graffiti showed up on Jewish stores in his district, nor would he attend Jewish rallies in synagogues.
Latimer attended all of them.
Do Westchester Jews favor Latimer over Bowman because of Israel? Absolutely, but not solely. Bowman has years of earning his disrespect, including collecting a bipartisan censure from Congress for pulling a fire alarm.
Bowman’s calling Westchester Jews “racist” for backing a White challenger is offensive and yet another sign of his moral failures. District 16 Jews support neighboring NY-15’s Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Black-Latino gay politician, for standing up to the mob destroying property at Columbia University and for inciting violence against Jews, while Bowman supported the anarchists. Lower Westchester elected Mondaire Jones, a Black gay progressive in 2020 when the district lines put lower Westchester into NY-17.
New York’s 16th Congressional District has sought to replace Bowman as their representative since lines were redrawn to cover most of lower Westchester in 2022. Bowman’s latest anti-Israel antics are disgusting appeals to get money from anti-Zionists outside of the district. Even if October 7 never happened, lower Westchester would still rally to unseat the unpopular extremist Bowman.
