The most watched primary contest this summer pulled off an upset against two-term Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who leaned hard on an anti-Israel campaign that received national attention in a presidential election year with the war in Gaza litigated among Democratic voters. Westchester County Executive George Latimer will now be representing the 16th Congressional District in Washington.
“This grassroots campaign made over 50,000 calls and knocked on 12,500 doors,” tweeted Sydney Altfield. “The total Jewish voter turnout is... 14,871. This represents 57.66% of all eligible Jewish voters.”
Her organization, Teach NYS, is better known as an advocate for yeshivos, but for this race she mobilized Jewish voters in Yonkers, New Rochelle, Rye, and other lower Westchester communities. Relying on eight of the biggest synagogues in the district, Jewish voters punched above their weight, voting at rates that far exceeded the Jewish share of the electorate.
Teach NYS founder Maury Litwack congratulated the organization for its voter outreach effort. “Very proud of our community. We will register to vote while others scream on social media. We will request our ballots while others squawk on cable TV. We will vote.”
Bowman was first elected to Congress in 2000, ousting House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel, who was in his 16th term at the Capitol. He ran as the former middle school principal who was more in touch with minority and younger voters. At the time, the district included Riverdale, and Bowman spoke as a moderate on Israel, supportive of the two-state solution and visiting the land with J Street as his guide, billed as an alternative to AIPAC.
After redistricting took Riverdale out of Bowman’s district, he became more critical of Israel, tweeting about apartheid and genocide, denying that Hamas had raped Israeli women hostages, and calling Israel a “settler colonial entity” in interviews. During his reelection campaign, he framed his reelection as a race against AIPAC, hardly mentioning Latimer by name.
Although Bowman did not hold an elected position prior to his election in 2020, many state and federal lawmakers began their careers in local offices. Recognizing that today’s Council Member could be running for State Assembly or Congress in the future, pro-Israel activists formed Solidarity PAC as the local version of AIPAC to support candidates in city and state races.
Their victories on Tuesday night include the reelection of East Bronx Assemblyman Michael Benedetto against DSA challenger Jonathan Soto, who was running with the support of his former boss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In Bed-Stuy and northern Crown Heights, incumbent Assemblywoman Stephani Zinerman narrowly beat Eon Tyrrell Huntley whose campaign mailers spoke of Gaza on the ballot, and supporting Not on Our Dime, a bill seeking to revoke tax-exempt status of pro-Israel organizations, particularly those supporting communities in eastern Jerusalem, Yehudah, and Shomron.
Drafted by State Sen. Zohran Mamdani last year and reintroduced this past spring, the bill stands no chance of passing, but with anti-Israel candidates picking up seats, his argument to have the bill voted on the floor becomes stronger.
Among the seats won by candidates seeking to boycott Israel, in western Queens, incumbent Juan Ardila was once a darling of progressives but facing allegations of improper behavior, received less than ten percent of the vote. Lawyer Johanna Carmona had the support of county party leaders but lost to the DSA labor organizer Claire Valdez by more than 1,700 votes for the 37th District.
In northern Brooklyn, incumbent Emily Gallagher kept her Assembly seat with more than three-fourths of the vote; and in the Hudson Valley, Sarahana Shrestra won with nearly two-thirds, both of them speaking of ceasefire on the campaign trail.
Not all state races were focused on the Gaza war. In Flushing, support for police brought out voters for Yi Andy Chen, an entrepreneur who ran a well-funded campaign against incumbent Assemblyman Ron Kim. Once a supporter of Bernie Sanders’ presidential run, he saw the writing on the wall and in recent months expressed support for law enforcement and anti-squatter legislation, along with his public stand against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Covid policies.
In the unusually tight race for Surrogate Court judge in Queens, Cassandra A. Johnson, who had personally campaigned in Kew Gardens Hills, secured a win with 54.46% of the vote (32,682 votes). She had the backing of the county party organization in her race against Wendy Li, who garnered 45.02% of the vote (27,016 votes), with over 98% of the reporting counted. Sharifa Nasser-Cuéllar, and Glenda M. Hernandez won the Civil Court Democratic judgeship nomination, upsetting Julie M. Milner in third place and local favorite Amish R. Doshi.
In West Hempstead, turnout for the Democratic State Senate primary for Kevin Thomas’ seat was dismal, as the nearest early voting site was in Hempstead, and there was very little personal outreach conducted by either of the candidates. The winner, County Legislator Siela Bynoe, argued that she was running against deeply pocketed interests, while Taylor Darling took a moderate tone. Across the train tracks in heavily African American Lakeview, lawn signs of Bynoe supporters outnumbered Darling, and she was far ahead in the results as they were counted on election night.
The race is now on for the country’s highest office, and although New York is expected to give its vote to Joe Biden, dissatisfaction with his policies on Israel may lead to pockets of votes for Donald Trump in districts where Jewish primary voters this week prevented Biden’s party from sliding further to the left.
By Sergey Kadinsky
