When Bronx State Senator Alessandra Biaggi endorsed her local congressman, Eliot Engel, for re-election last year, she argued that it wasn’t a good time to primary Democratic incumbents. “I believed the most important thing to do in 2020 was win the White House,” she said. “But the world has changed.”
Earlier this month, Biaggi ditched Engel, who has served in Congress since 1989, and backed Jamaal Bowman, Engel’s progressive challenger. She told Gothamist a member of Engel’s political team threatened her with unspecified “revenge” for repudiating the longtime representative. But Biaggi insisted it was time for Engel to leave office, especially in the wake of a pandemic that has devastated the Bronx.
“The leaders of the world moving forward have to have fire in the belly and the desire to show up to run through a brick wall. I don’t see that in him at all,” Biaggi said.
It was a stinging blow for Engel, who is fighting for his political life on Tuesday, June 23rd, the date of what is shaping up to be the most high profile Democratic primary in New York. Bowman, a former middle school principal in the Bronx and a resident of Yonkers, has raised north of $1 million, winning the backing of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, and MoveOn, the national progressive advocacy group. Last week, in another repudiation of Engel, the New York Times endorsed Bowman. Even Senator Chuck Schumer, a customary endorser of incumbents, is withholding his support for Engel.
A new poll shows Bowman leading Engel 41% to 31% with 27% undecided, and longtime political observers agree Engel is in danger. Parallels are already being drawn between Bowman’s insurgency and Ocasio-Cortez’s successful challenge of Joe Crowley two years ago.
Like Crowley, Engel is a white man who represents a majority minority district that includes a chunk of the Bronx. Like Crowley, Engel enjoys significant seniority in the House; he is currently the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
And, like Crowley, Engel has faced criticism for being disconnected from his district, making his home in Maryland and avoiding the COVID-19-ravaged Bronx and Westchester for months.
When Engel returned for a news conference at the start of June, he could be heard on camera angling for a chance to speak. “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care,” Engel said twice.
Engel appeared to have meant that he normally wouldn’t insist on speaking, but the damage was done: the clip made national news and further emboldened Bowman’s campaign.
“Engel does not seem to have recognized the issue that Joe Crowley had with not living in his district and being so blatant about it,” said Doug Forand, a Democratic strategist who has worked on multiple Westchester races. “It’s always a concern for voters.”
To make matters worse for Engel, he doesn’t possess the same kind of local clout that Crowley enjoyed heading into his own election. Crowley was the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, commanding staunch loyalty from local elected officials and labor unions. His standing kept most politicians from endorsing Ocasio-Cortez. Even the progressive Working Families Party backed Crowley.
The more understated Engel is not regarded as a power broker in either the Bronx or Westchester. He is probably best known for his engagement with foreign policy, including his staunch support for Israel, going as far as to rebuke Barack Obama when he negotiated a deal with Iran to reduce their nuclear capacity in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Jamaal Bowman.
Bowman is tackling Engel from the left on domestic and international concerns. He checks the popular leftist boxes: support for Medicare for All, Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, and a national housing guarantee. As an educator, Bowman first rose to prominence founding a public middle school in the Bronx and joining the opt-out movement boycotting state testing.
A native of Harlem and the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, Bowman, like Ocasio-Cortez, was recruited by Justice Democrats, a leftist grassroots group that primaries House Democrats, to run for office.
“Eliot Engel is completely funded by corporate PACs and big donors. He’s funded by weapons manufacturers,” Bowman told Gothamist. “He has a continuing history of supporting war and privatization and Wall Street.”
Bowman has criticized Engel for his “myopic” record in Congress, which has left him with a series of votes that can be liabilities for liberal Democrats. Engel supported the Iraq War, voted to repeal parts of the Glass-Steagall Act, and backed No Child Left Behind, the Bush era education law that increased the use of standardized testing.
On foreign policy, Bowman has attacked Engel for his unequivocal support for Israel as the nation, under right-wing leadership, draws international condemnation for human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories. “I support a two-state solution. I support Israel’s right to exist, but I support those things for the Palestinian people as well.”
For all the wind at Bowman’s back, it’s still very possible Engel, who declined an interview request, survives. The 16th Congressional District differs in crucial ways from Ocasio-Cortez’s stomping grounds.
There is no obvious neighborhood or town with the type of younger, left-leaning residents who powered Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning upset. The district is a mix of working class African-Americans areas like Mount Vernon and Co-op City, affluent Jewish enclaves like Riverdale, and some of the most exclusive towns in America, including Rye. For some traditional Democrats, Engel’s more conservative foreign policy views are a boon rather than a liability.
Though it’s been 20 years since Engel faced a competitive race, he is more battle-tested than Crowley. In 2000, he survived a challenge from another insurgent, then State Senator Larry Seabrook, when Seabrook enjoyed the support of the Bronx Democratic machine. Engel wasn’t handed his seat either; he won a competitive Democratic primary, as a reform-oriented Democrat, after Mario Biaggi, a popular congressman, announced his resignation from Congress on a corruption conviction but couldn’t get his name off the ballot.
Locally, Engel still has crucial allies. Hillary Clinton, who lives in a neighboring Westchester district, endorsed him on Monday, and Governor Andrew Cuomo endorsed him on Wednesday. The Bronx Democratic Party and Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the State Senate majority leader and a representative of Yonkers, remain in his corner. For all Bowman’s fundraising prowess, Engel has nearly doubled his haul, and right-leaning outside political action committees are spending lavishly on his behalf.
“Eliot Engel has great seniority,” said Shawyn Patterson-Howard, the mayor of Mount Vernon and an Engel supporter. “Right now we need someone in Congress who has the seniority, bandwidth, capacity, gravitas, and influence to bring back resources for our community.”
Patterson-Howard praised Engel for his role in delivering federal funding for her city, which was hit hard by coronavirus. She argued it didn’t matter that he wasn’t in the district as much because his job was to secure resources for the area through the CARES Act, the coronavirus-relief legislation passed in March.
“He could’ve been here handing out food but then what would have happened to the millions of dollars he got us?” she asked.
Lately, the Engel campaign has begun to return fire at Bowman. In mailings from the Engel camp, Bowman was attacked for not registering as a Democrat until 2018 and previously belonging to the scandal-scarred Independence Party. (Many New Yorkers, believing they are registering as independents, erroneously join the party.)
The Engel campaign then hit Bowman for the “failed” state standardized math and English scores at Bowman’s former middle school, though the criticism drew a rebuke from one of Engel’s own backers, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
“I am supporting #EliotEngel, but this is wrong about @JamaalBowmanNY. He is a wonderful educator,” Weingarten tweeted on June 13th.
Complicating the race further are three other candidates on the ballot, though none are expected to garner a significant number of votes. Andom Ghebreghiorgis, who was also running to Engel’s left, dropped out of the race and endorsed Bowman after he had qualified for the ballot. Chris Fink, a tax attorney, and Sammy Ravelo, a retired NYPD lieutenant, have raised relatively little money.
What’s also unclear is the impact of COVID-19 and the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots. Neither Bowman nor Engel can undertake traditional get-out-the-vote efforts. They can’t deploy many canvassers to knock on doors and leaflet in crowded areas.
TV, direct mail, and digital ads loom especially large, and few can guess how exactly such a hotly-contested primary will unfold without the sort of frenzied in-person campaigning that characterizes the final week of any competitive race.
“People are starting to canvass. We’re seeing it happen more and more,” Forand said. “But you have to be careful.”
