Tonight, the fallout from an historic Democratic primary in New
York.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer knocking progressive firebrand Jamal Bowman
out of the house.
And we say that we believe
inclusion, everybody.
Latimer bested Bowman by double digits in New York 16th
Congressional District,
which includes part of the Bronx and the suburbs outside
New York City.
Bowman is the first ousted member of the progressive lawmakers
who call themselves the Squad and just the third incumbent
to lose their seat this cycle.
The congressman defiant in defeat,
at one point lashing out during his concession speech after
he felt his concentration was broken.
It's coming. Why you messed it up,
Why you mess it up?
Damn, I'm in the zone up here.
It was a bruising primary fight.
He's nowhere to be found.
Go ahead. Get out of here,
man. You're nowhere to be found.
One that showcased Democratic divides dating back to Hillary Clinton
and Bernie Sanders in 2016.
The two former rivals endorsed on opposite sides of this
race.
Dramal's victory will be significant.
New York 16th broke records,
the most expensive House primary in history,
$25 million spent on ads,
much of it from groups tied to AIPAC,
a pro Israel group at odds with Bowman's calls for
a ceasefire and anti Israeli stance.
Is that the central issue in this race as you
see it though?
It is because he was recruited by AIPAC to run
against me because I called for a permanent ceasefire very
early on.
Voters here motivated by a mix of local and national
issues.
What brought you out to vote?
I've
I thought this was a very important race
to just make my vote matter,
especially for Westchester County, as well as the general tone
of the candidates,
which got colorful at times.
I just feel like Bowman just a little too aggressive.
All the cursing, profanity, all the action is it's not
needed because you're a man that's representing everyone.
But a bitter democratic divide over Gaza on full display
in an area with a significant number of Jewish voters.
He's been a really strong advocate for the Palestinian people.
Vladimir wants to bring Israel and the Hamas to the
table and come with a long term solution.
That's like that's much better.
Those democratic divides evident on election night.
We should be outraged
when
unfortunately some so-called Democrats are aligning themselves with radical racist
right wing Republicans.
We should be outraged about that.
Past actions made Bowman more vulnerable to a well known
local challenger.
He opposed key Democratic initiatives on infrastructure and the debt
ceiling and made for TV.
Moments going after Republicans spurred questions about his seriousness.
They're countless. Plus, this now infamous moment.
Bowman pulled a fire alarm to stall a high stakes
vote last September.
He first said it was an accident,
only to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for falsely triggering
the alarm.
The fire alarm incident was inexplicable.
Now, Bowman's primary defeat, raising difficult questions for Democrats on
the war and the political pitfalls it might bring come
November.
It's much deeper than just about Gaza and Israel.
He voted against some other things that are that would
have unified the Democratic Party.
And I think in a primary,
the the base was not appreciative of that.
Ali Vitale joins us tonight from Washington after spending a
few days here on the ground actually covering that district
and that race.
So, Ali, what do we know about Bowman's plans after
this loss?
Is there a chance he runs
in a third party in the general?
That would cause problems in the general,
especially because this is a district that is blue.
But once you start splitting that Democratic vote,
I think that could get people very nervous.
Tom. The reason that nervousness might exist,
though, is because just last night,
when I was last with the congressman,
he was asked, would you consider a run with another
party,
for example, the Working Families Party?
He did not say no.
Instead, at that point, he said we're just going to
win.
Of course, that didn't happen.
And now it sort of leaves an open question.
Could he go that route or will he just end
his political bid for this district now and then,
Allie, I'm curious, how did the vote breakdown in this
primary,
Right? Because as we mentioned,
you have the Bronx, but then you also have the
suburbs of New York City.
Exactly. And this district before redistricting was way more Bronx
than it was Westchester County.
Now it's the Bronx is a sliver and Westchester County
is the bulk of this district.
So when you look at the vote breakdown,
Bowman did really well in the Bronx.
He blew it out. He got over 80%
of the vote. But that's not where the bulk of
the votes were in this district.
Instead, it was really a 2 to one split for
or when you got into Westchester County.
And I'll just tell you anecdotally,
I grew up in this area.
I know a lot of the the profile of candidates
who have represented it before.
And in my conversations with voters,
it was clear many of them felt that Bowman was
no longer aligned with that.
And then finally, Ali, what if anything,
could Democrats pull from this race for the general election?
Were there lessons to be learned?
There are lessons. I'm not sure anyone's learned them yet,
Tom. But the three that I'm looking at are the
conversations that we're seeing bubbling already on Capitol Hill.
The 1st is the ways that progressives are going to
now deal with Democratic leadership.
There was some griping behind the scenes about Democrats feeling
their leadership,
Hakeem Jeffries and others didn't necessarily do enough for Bowman.
Of course, leadership would forcefully push back on that and
say,
look, we respected the election results last time.
We're respecting them now. This is what voters want.
We just want to take back the majority.
The second thing I'm thinking of,
it was just the role of outside money.
We've heard a lot about that from progressives,
from Democrats writ large. Do they make a push on
that,
especially just given the amount of money AIPAC put into
this?
And then, of course, you've got another primary that's going
to go kind of along these lines in Missouri with
Congresswoman Corey Bush.
AIPAC could be looking to put money into that race
as well.
That's really the next electoral test I'm going to be
looking at to see if there's any lessons learned ahead
of November,
when all of them will be put to the test
at the same time.
All right, Ali Vitale, always great to have you on.