What Jamaal Bowman’s loss in New York means for the future of ‘the Squad’

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Jamaal Bowman first ran for Congress, he chastised his opponent — a 16-term Democratic congressman who chaired a powerful House committee — as disconnected from his suburban New York district and too focused on foreign policy.

The message helped Bowman defeat incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel and become the first Black man to represent the 16th Congressional District. But four years later, the case he made against Engel ended in his own political demise in one of the nation’s most closely watched primaries, as he became the first member of the progressive band of liberals known as the “Squad” to lose a reelection bid.

“He became the very person he accused Engel of being,” Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic political consultant, said Wednesday. “Much more engaged in foreign affairs, less engaged in community-based activities. Much more rhetorical, much less constituent services.”

The decisive victory by 70-year-old George Latimer, a white centrist Democrat, handed the left flank its first electoral defeat this cycle, raising concerns about how other incumbents might fare in the coming months and, more broadly, whether progressives are in retreat in Washington.

“The pendulum has swung back,” said Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York Democratic Party. “It’s a clear indication that the Democratic Party has moved toward wanting common sense solutions, common sense governance and wants to favor those candidates, rather than those from the extreme.”

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