Last Night’s Elections Were a Political Earthquake
It’s been a tough few months in the wake of Bernie Sanders’s defeat. But after the recent explosions in the streets and ongoing down-ballot progressive electoral organizing in the last year, the Left came roaring back in last night’s primaries.
Middle school principal Jamaal Bowman appears to have successfully ousted Rep. Eliot Engel. https://twitter.com/JamaalBowmanNY
After a rollercoaster few months, first with Bernie Sanders dropping out and then with the unprecedented explosion of protest in response to the police murder of George Floyd, there can be little doubt that last night’s elections in New York and Kentucky were a cause for celebration for the Left.
Though results are still coming in, insurgent candidates — many backed by Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — clearly had a good night. The liberal status quo had a very bad one.
The undisputed highlight is New York’s Sixteenth Congressional District, where middle school principal Jamaal Bowman successfully ousted Representative Eliot Engel — the most senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and unquestionably one of the worst Democrats in Congress — by a double-digit margin.
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