Rep #JamaalBowman of #NewYork, one of #Congress’s most outspoken progressives, suffered a stinging #primary defeat Tues, brought down by a record-shattering onslaught from pro-#Israel groups & a slate of self-inflicted blunders.
#Bowman was defeated by #GeorgeLatimer, the Westchester County exec, in a race that became the year’s ugliest intraparty brawl & the most expensive #House primary in history.
His positions on the #war & #economic issues electrified #progressives, who undertook a rescue mission led by AOC. But ultimately did little to win over voters & only emboldened adversaries.
A #superPAC affiliated w/ #AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, dumped $15M into defeating him, more than any outside group has ever spent on a #House race.
Why #JamaalBowman’s #NewYork primary is huge for pro-#Israel groups
An #AIPAC-aligned #superPAC & others have spent increasingly huge sums of money in high-profile #Democrat primaries. Their record is mixed, but a #Bowman defeat would be their biggest win yet. Pro-Israel groups make up an increasingly large presence in #primaries for #Congress. Even so, the effort to unseat Rep #JamaalBowman in Tue’s #primary is extraordinary.
The result could reverberate greatly in the evolving internal #Democrat debate over the #war in #Gaza.
That’s because, while the $ amts are becoming larger & the results have been mostly positive for the pro-Israel groups, their record is still mixed in the highest-profile races. Unseating #Bowman would be the strongest sign yet that criticizing #Israel is a recipe for heartburn & may be a contributing factor in an incumbent’s loss.
#Senate#Democrats opened an investigation on Thurs into #Trump’s meeting w/ #oil & #gas execs last month to determine whether Trump offered a “policies-for-money transaction” [#bribe ] when he asked for $1B for his 2024 campaign so he could retake the White House & delete #POTUS#Biden’s #climate#regulations.