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Insurgent Wave Upends House Primaries in N.Y. as Engel Falls Behind
Following the 2018 success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, three progressive Democrats took commanding leads in their primaries.
By Jesse McKinley, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and
Candidates from the Democratic Party’s left wing held significant leads in three marquee House primaries in New York after Tuesday’s machine ballot count, in a profound show of progressive political power.
One of the contests could lead to the unseating of an entrenched leader: Representative Eliot L. Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was badly trailing Jamaal Bowman, an insurgent candidate from Yonkers.
If Mr. Engel, who has served in Congress for more than 30 years, were to lose, it would echo a similar upset in 2018, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joseph Crowley, then the No. 4 House Democrat.
But this year, the movement seemed to have more reach, as progressive Democrats led the way in contests for two open House seats held by retiring Democrats.
In the Bronx, Ritchie Torres, a city councilman, led a pack of contenders in the 15th Congressional District, where Representative José E. Serrano is retiring. Those trailing Mr. Torres included a political veteran, Rubén Díaz Sr., a conservative former state senator with a history of anti-gay remarks, who had been considered among the favorites.
And in the Hudson Valley district held by Representative Nita Lowey, who is also retiring, Mondaire Jones, a Harvard-educated lawyer, had pulled away from six other candidates in early returns.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Torres would become trailblazers if elected in November: Either would be the first openly gay black member of Congress.
All of Tuesday’s results came with a sizable caveat: State officials had issued nearly two million absentee ballots to voters statewide because of the coronavirus outbreak, and those votes — which could be postmarked as late as Primary Day — would not be fully counted for at least a week.
That means close races may stay in limbo till July. One such contest involves another veteran Democratic incumbent, Representative Carolyn Maloney, who had a slight lead over Suraj Patel, who ran against her in 2018.
Still, early returns seemed to confirm that the liberal wave that elected Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to Congress in 2018 has continued to build momentum.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had faced a primary challenge herself but swept it aside easily, even as like-minded candidates — embracing her call for a Green New Deal and Medicaid for All, among other policies — showed electoral muscle.
That strength was perhaps most evident in the 16th Congressional District, which includes parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, and where Mr. Bowman had a hefty lead over Mr. Engel, who was first elected there in 1988.
The race there had illustrated the sharp schism in Democratic ranks, with Mr. Bowman backed by many of the Democrats’ most outspoken progressives and Mr. Engel, fighting for his political life, seeking rescue from more centrist party leaders like the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Mr. Bowman, a middle-school principal, declared victory on Wednesday morning, though The Associated Press had yet to call the race.
In a speech to supporters on Tuesday night, he spoke out against poverty, racism and sexism, among other social ills, “a system that’s literally killing us.” He said, if elected, he would be a “black man with power.”
“That is what Donald Trump is afraid of,” said Mr. Bowman, adding: “I cannot wait to get to Congress and cause problems.”
In a statement, the Engel campaign said “any declarative statement on the outcome of this race right now is premature,” and called for every vote to be counted.
Establishment Democrats could take some solace in easy wins for a number of incumbents, including Representative Gregory Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party. Representative Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, held a comfortable lead over two challengers, and Representative Yvette Clarke was also leading in her race in Brooklyn, though — as elsewhere — thousands of absentee votes remained to be counted.
Indeed, the sheer number of absentee ballots could prove daunting to election officials, especially considering the battles over vote counts even before the coronavirus, like last year’s contested election for district attorney in Queens.
Martin Connor, an election lawyer and former state senator, said the pandemic would present daunting logistical issues for the New York City Board of Elections. The board would need to ensure social distancing during the counting process, while allowing campaigns to have representatives — or watchers — present to oversee the vote counts.
“It’s an extraordinary number of absentee ballots,” he said. “And we’ve never had this in the history of this state.”
Though more than 700,000 voters in New York City were sent absentee ballots, not all of them are expected to be returned. Many voters might not have received them in time, might have failed to mail them in, or might have voted in person instead.
So far, the city’s Board of Elections had received about 12 percent of the absentee ballots that were mailed out, according to preliminary data.
Matt Rey, a partner at Red Horse Strategies, a political consulting firm that has been analyzing the demographics of voters who applied for absentee ballots, said there was nothing in the data to suggest Mr. Bowman, Mr. Jones and Mr. Torres were at risk of losing their leads.
“The breadth of their victories is the real highlight for me here,” said Mr. Rey, whose firm worked with a candidate, Assemblyman David Buchwald, who ran against Mr. Jones in the 17th District. “They’re rightly confident to declare victory.”
Mr. Rey noted an overwhelming number of voters who requested absentee ballots in competitive districts were under age 40, a demographic that could give challengers an edge.
The progressive surge in congressional races also played out in many down-ballot legislative races, especially in State Assembly races in Queens, where several incumbents appeared endangered.
In Jackson Heights, Jessica González-Rojas, a Latina community organizer who drew many parallels to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, was leading a crowded race to defeat Assemblyman Michael DenDekker, a six-term Democrat. In Astoria, Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, was beating Aravella Simotas, an assemblywoman from Astoria since 2011.
In Westchester County, two assemblymen, Steven Otis and Thomas J. Abinanti, were also trailing their opponents.
The big night for progressives was hailed by liberal groups like the Working Families Party and political action committees like Justice Democrats, which had jointly spent more than $1 million on Mr. Bowman’s behalf. On Wednesday, the two groups were declaring victory, and sending warning signals, to more mainstream Democrats, including the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“The future of the Democratic Party looks a lot more like A.O.C. and Jamaal than Joe Biden,” said Waleed Shahid, the communications director for the Justice Democrats. “Biden knows that if he enters the White House in 2021, he won’t be governing with the same Congress from 2009.”
Like Mr. Bowman and Mr. Torres, Mr. Jones had campaigned on civil rights and criminal justice issues, seizing on the energy inside the Black Lives Matters movement after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Jones, a lawyer supported by the institutional left and many national progressive leaders, had garnered more than twice the votes of his nearest rival, Adam Schleifer, a former federal prosecutor and the son of a pharmaceutical billionaire who had outspent Mr. Jones by more than five to one. Mr. Jones, however, benefited from some independent expenditures on his behalf, including by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
If he wins the Democratic nomination and the general election in November, Mr. Jones would fill the seat held by Ms. Lowey, 82, who announced her impending retirement in October in the face of a possible primary challenge from Mr. Jones. A first-time candidate and an avowed science-fiction fan, Mr. Jones likened the race to “a story out of a sci-fi novel,” he said.
Which sci-fi novel, he was asked?
“One that is still being written,” he said.
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