Miscellaneous
Across the country, there has been a wave of progressive victories in Democratic primaries over the past few years. In 2018, we saw Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and a number of New York State Senate seats flip from the hands of incumbent Democrats to young, bold progressive voices fighting for a new status quo. This trend has continued in 2020 with Cori Bush, Marie Newman, and many others, including a man from the Bronx, NY. On June 23, Jamaal Bowman unseated a powerful sitting representative: Eliot Engel has been in Congress for 31 years and is the current Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Bowman won the primary by a resounding margin, beating Rep. Engel by nearly 15 percentage points and over 13,000 votes. It was a huge shock for many in the political world: how could an influential incumbent once again vastly underestimate their primary challenger? Bowman's campaign, however, knew that anything was possible with enough hard work and community engagement. A former middle school principal and founder of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in the Bronx, Bowman's background is in education. He says that his motivation for running for Congress came mainly from seeing firsthand how poorly those children were treated and how little resources they had available to them in order to live successful lives. There's a direct connection between those horrible outcomes [youth deaths and suicides] and the trauma our kids and families deal with and poverty and bad policy that often comes from Washington. Bowman also speaks about NY's 16th Congressional District, which is the area he will be representing come January 2021. He talks about the vast wealth inequality that exists both in America as a whole but also specifically in his district: the 16th consists of very poor areas in the Bronx but also extremely affluent Westchester suburbs. When it comes to squaring his support of Joe Biden's presidential campaign and his own progressive values and beliefs, Bowman believes it isn't an either-or situation. He fights for things like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal because his constituents voted for him. After Trump has been defeated, Bowman says, then the left can begin working with Biden to further progressive policy. For now, he and his team are focused on helping with the Census count in the Bronx and ousting the GOP incumbent in November.