Date: 2024-05-15 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00019088
US Politics
Democratic Primaries
CONGRESS ... “THAT IS AN AOC-LEVEL UPSET”: THE PRESUMPTIVE OUSTER OF ELIOT ENGEL EMBOLDENS PROGRESSIVES
Peter Burgess
Strong showings from Jamaal Bowman in New York and Charles Booker in Kentucky have revealed the schism between Democratic leadership and Democratic voters. Meaning that progressives, as one staffer put it, “shouldn’t write anywhere off.”
That Is an AOCLevel Upset The Presumptive Ouster of Eliot Engel Emboldens Progressives BY SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley toppled Democratic incumbents Joe Crowley and Mike Capuano, respectively, their victories were largely written off as flukes. The failure of progressives to elect candidates in the ensuing election cycles—Marie Newman being a notable exception—lent support to that narrative. But now, with Jamaal Bowman, a former middle school principal, expected to oust powerful House committee chairman Eliot Engel; the dimming prospects of Amy McGrath, the establishment-backed Democrat, against Charles Booker in Kentucky; and a number of other predicted wins, progressives see themselves in the throes of a political sea change. “Do you know what the left hasn’t had for a while? A bench,” progressive Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz, whose firm, New Deal Strategies, works with the Bowman campaign, told me Wednesday morning. “I’ve always believed we’ve had the right message and flawed messengers, and I think we’re getting new messengers now.”
The official verdicts in many of Tuesday’s races are still out, with thousands of mail-in ballots yet to be counted. But it’s hard to see the momentum among progressive challengers as anything other than a rebuke of the Democratic establishment. Engel has yet to concede his race, but Bowman’s success has been stunning. From his perch as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Engel, a 16-term Democrat, is one of the most powerful members of the House and has played a critical role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. Even as Engel’s reelection was thrown into question over a series of missteps—his absence during the coronavirus outbreak in his district and an awkward hot-mic moment top the list—traditional arbiters of the establishment lined up behind him, including Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, accompanied by a blitz of negative ads attacking Bowman. As Bowman’s likely double-digit victory suggests, neither tactic did much good. “Our movement is overcoming the culture of fear instilled by the machine and proved victorious in cutting through the smears and millions of dollars of cash from corporate PACs and foreign policy hawks to usher in a new generation of leadership,” Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats, which backed Bowman, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the race between Booker and McGrath remains too close to call, despite the latter being handpicked by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and receiving $41 million in donations. If Booker comes out on top, Karthik Ganapathy, a progressive political strategist working on the Booker campaign and a veteran of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential bid, told me it would amount to a “Cantor-level upset”—a reference to Dave Brat’s unexpected victory over Republican and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014. “This is someone who was anointed by the party and given $40 million, right?” Ganapathy said, acknowledging that the race is still too close to call. “It really just sort of flips the script…. You’re not supposed to be able to run on the Green New Deal in Kentucky.”
As the COVID-19 crisis continues to ravage communities—in particular communities of color—and protests over the killing of George Floyd have spilled out across the country, there has been a palpable shift in the political winds. Discontent with the status quo was laid bare as Bowman and Booker surged. While Bowman’s win may now seem inevitable, however, Ganapathy stressed that people shouldn’t lose perspective on progressive momentum. “I feel like the expectations are a little out of whack,” he told me. “A middle school principal with no prior political experience defeating a 20-year incumbent—that is an AOC-level upset.”
It’s not just two races, either. Elsewhere in New York, the race between Carolyn Maloney, the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, and Suraj Patel, a veteran of Barack Obama’s campaign and administration, will hinge upon absentee ballots. Mondaire Jones, a favorite of the activist left, picked up more than double any other candidate in the crowded primary to replace Nita Lowey in New York’s 17th district. And Ritchie Torres is on track to win a highly contested Bronx congressional seat. (If elected, Jones and Torres would make history as the first openly gay, Black men in Congress.) And arguably, the fact that New York has emerged as ground zero for this progressive groundswell is telling in itself. While it is standard for party leadership to endorse and protect incumbent Democrats, the rise of progressives could be a troubling portent for Pelosi and Schumer.
Tuesday’s successes certainly reflect a better-oiled progressive machine. But the momentum on the left also suggests the Democratic establishment is truly out of touch with voters as the country grapples with a pandemic and widespread protests over racial injustice. “The D-triple-C put a bunch of us on a blacklist last year and we all went out and won races,” Katz told me. (In March of last year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee implemented a policy meant to protect incumbents by refusing to work with vendors and consultants helping to unseat them.) Ganapathy said the lesson for progressives is, “We shouldn’t write anywhere off, that our ideas are actually popular everywhere and we can win even in some of these deep red states.”
The impact of progressive victories, if they pan out, will be immediate. Not only will the so-called Squad—Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib—receive reinforcements, but an Engel loss would leave an opening at the helm of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, which he chairs. The jockeying to be his successor has already begun. California congressman Brad Sherman has emerged as an early front-runner for the job, given his seniority on the committee. When asked Wednesday about the possibility of succeeding Engel, Sherman stressed that the Engel–Bowman race hasn’t been officially called, despite Bowman declaring victory. “They haven’t counted every ballot,” the California congressman told me. “Engel has not conceded, and Engel is a good friend.” He added, “I’m rooting for the absentee ballots to surprise us.”
When it comes to succession within the Democratic caucus, seniority typically rules. As Sherman has served for decades on the committee and on all six of the foreign affairs subcommittees, precedent makes him the clear choice. “If Sherman gets it, it’s going to be because Democrats are beholden to the seniority process,” a senior Democratic congressional staffer told me. But there is a question as to whether House leadership might go in a different direction. “Bowman ran against Engel on foreign policy…. So now they just fill that spot in with a carbon copy of an Engel? Unclear,” a second congressional staffer told me. “It’s not like Engel just resigned. He lost [to] someone running against his foreign policy platform, which is essentially what the foreign affairs committee has been doing and…has been pretty intertwined with the Democratic establishment. So I think it’s a wake-up call for Democratic leadership.”
Congressman Gregory Meeks is seen as Sherman’s most likely challenger. While the two have relatively similar voting records on foreign policy, Meeks supported the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal whereas Sherman joined Engel in voting against it. (Florida congressman Ted Deutch, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism and has also been floated as a contender for the job, likewise voted against the Iran deal.) Meeks would have the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus if he were to make a play for the seat, though the CBC traditionally has been a vocal proponent of the seniority rule.
Like Sherman, Meeks dismissed speculation on the chairmanship as premature. “I have been working very hard to help Chairman Engel get reelected. We know that there are a lot of paper ballots still out there right now…. And so at this time, all I’m doing is [staying] focused on trying to help him get reelected,” he told me Wednesday. Meeks added that if Engel ultimately loses, they can have another conversation, but right now, the conversation is, “Let's help Eliot Engel come back.”
Congressmen Albio Sires and Gerry Connolly are two other senior members of the committee said to be potentially in the running. But sources I spoke with said Connolly seems to lack interest in the role. If Maloney loses to her progressive challenger, Connolly is viewed as likely to take a run at the chair of the House Oversight Committee, which he ran for last year after Elijah Cummings passed away. And Joaquin Castro, who serves as the vice chairman of the HFAC, could be a long-shot pick, should leadership break with the seniority tradition for the post.
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