Corporate Democrats lose New York primary elections

This 23 June 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Watch Jamaal Bowman‘s POWERFUL de facto victory speech as it appears he has defeated incumbent Representative Eliot Engel.

Eliot Engel is a veteran establishment Democratic party politician. Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Like Donald Trump, he supported the wrecking of President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. He voted for George W Bush’s Iraq war. In 2014, he spoke along with Islamophobic extremist Pamela Geller at a rally.

In April 2020, he falsely claimed that he had helped to fight COVID-19 in New York City, while in fact, he had not been to New York since March.

Recently, he said that that the only criticized police brutality against Black Lives Matter protesters because he had to fight the primary election against Jamaal Bowman.

16-TERM DEMOCRAT ON THE ROPES IN NEW YORK A progressive upstart led longtime Rep. Eliot Engel in the closely watched Democratic primary for New York’s 16th Congressional District early today, with the outcome inconclusive. With less than 20% of precincts reporting, Bronx middle school principal Jamaal Bowman led Engel by more than 25 percentage points. Bowman delivered a triumphant speech to supporters gathered at an outdoor, riverside restaurant. [HuffPost]

From British daily The Independent today:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won a shock primary victory two years ago and swiftly rose to national political stardom, looks set to win a second term in Congress.

The 30-year-old progressive defeated a number of centrist primary challengers from her own party, paving the way for re-election in New York’s 14th district, a safe Democratic seat that covers the Bronx and Queens.

An increase in postal ballots due to the coronavirus means that many thousands of votes will not be counted until next week. But with early results showing Ms Ocasio-Cortez with a more than 50 per cent lead, the Associated Press called the race on Tuesday evening. …

Her own primary victory in 2018 against 10-term incumbent Joe Cowley,

Crowley, not Cowley

then the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, was one few saw coming. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a graduate of Boston University, was working behind the bar in a restaurant in New York’s Union Square when she launched her run. She took office at 29 years old, making her the youngest woman to ever serve in congress.

She did not go alone. The Bronx native was part of a wave progressive Democrats who unseated long-term, centrist incumbents. The arrival in Washington of AOC and “the Squad” — Reps Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib — marked a leftward shift in Democratic party politics. Each of them advocated for more radical solutions to America’s ills and the excesses of Donald Trump’s presidency.

When I won in 2018, many dismissed our victory as a “fluke.”

Our win was treated as an aberration, or bc my opponent “didn’t try.”

So from the start, tonight’s race was important to me.

Tonight we are proving that the people’s movement in NY isn’t an accident. It‘s a mandate.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 24, 2020

The question waiting to be answered by many of the primary races in New York on Tuesday was whether AOC’s arrival on the national stage was a harbinger of things to come, or an anomaly. And whether progressives could continue to pull the Democratic Party to the left at a time of national crisis and in a presidential election year that saw the archetypal establishment politician, former vice president Joe Biden, easily win the nomination.

This year, several races in New York have set up long-shot challenges to long-term incumbents that mirror AOC’s breakthrough campaign. One, in particular, could serve as a measure of progressive Democrats’ strength.

Jamaal Bowman, a former Bronx middle school principal who has been described as “the next AOC”, poses a serious threat to 73-year-old Eliot Engel, a 16-term congressman who was first elected in 1988. Democratic Party elders firmly closed ranks around Engel — Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and New York governor Andrew Cuomo all endorsed him.

Bowman, however, secured the nod from AOC: “Not only is Jamaal a profound community leader, but I believe he’d make a fantastic colleague in the United States House of Representatives,” she said.

Due to the high number of absentee ballots being cast in the New York primaries — a result of the coronavirus pandemic — results from close races may not be known for another week. But early results showed Bowman far ahead of Engel. A win for him would suggest that the progressive wave is by no means over. …

Her most serious primary challenger in this election was a former TV anchor and former Republican Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who has received substantial backing from large-dollar donors.

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera lived in a high-priced apartment in Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan for years.

Congratulations to @AOC for winning her primary tonight! In less than two years, she has become a major leader in Congress on many important issues, and I look forward to continue working with her to achieve justice for all working people. pic.twitter.com/zRAe2alDZB

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 24, 2020

Back in Queens, she has played a balancing act between the national stage and local issues. The district that AOC represents is one of the most diverse in the state of New York. Of its 650,000 residents, 50 percent are Hispanic, 17 percent Asian and 23 percent white, according to 2016 census figures. It also has the fifth-highest percentage of service-sector workers in all congressional districts.

Cierra Johnson, 34, happened to be passing by when AOC stopped in Astoria on Tuesday. She had spent the morning volunteering for the campaign, handing out flyers. Her husband is Bolivian and recently lost the opportunity to obtain a Green Card due to a ban by the Trump administration. She said she was drawn to AOC because “she was willing to stand up and fight.”