Jamaal Bowman Loses Primary To Non-Jamaal Bowman Candidate, And That Is Our Opinion On That!
Not a great night for Trump-endorsed candidates, either.

Yesterday was a big primary election day in several states, and I would just like to say that it still feels wrong to have any election on a Tuesday that isn’t in the first full week of the month, because it just throws us off a little, like seeing a familiar brand logo that’s just been revised. Nevertheless, in complete disregard of our sense of how things should be, primaries were held in New York, South Carolina, Colorado, and Utah anyway.
The biggest news is the defeat of Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D) in New York, in what was probably the most expensive congressional primary ever, until there’s another one. With 84 percent of the votes counted, Bowman was thumped by Westchester County Executive George Latimer, 58.4 percent to 41.6 percent. Latimer ran as a pro-Israel centrist and criticized Bowman’s often harsh criticisms of Israel’s war in Gaza, particularly his calling it a genocide. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) backed Latimer, and its campaign arm put $15 million into the primary, with affiliated groups also spending heavily on the campaign as well.
However, as Josh Marshall argued in a pre-election piece at Talking Points Memo, it may be an oversimplification to say all that spending was the primary factor in Bowman’s loss. Rather, Marshall makes the case that the race attracted all that money because Bowman was a vulnerable candidate, not the other way around — and that he was able to be painted, unfairly or no, as not having Joe Biden’s back. In a “normie Democratic” district, that hurt him!
In his two terms in Congress, Marshall says, Bowman has “played the part of a movement politician while representing a fairly normie Democratic suburban district. That’s a big disconnect” that was already noticeable in Bowman’s 2022 primary performance, where he “polled only 57% of the vote … against two fairly weak opponents who received pretty modest funding.”
We won’t get into all the weeds of Marshall’s argument here, but this makes sense to us:
Bowman has called the Israel-Hamas war a “genocide,” endorsed the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, frequently discusses Israel as a “settler-colonial” state, now says he supports ending funding of the “Iron Dome” missile defense. Set aside for the moment whether you agree with those positions or find them objectionable. They’re just not positions that are at all popular or safe to run with if you represent a mostly suburban district right outside New York City.
As we say, go read the whole thing; we especially like Marshall’s comparison of how Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez manages to express similarly strong opposition to the war while adroitly navigating the political landscape of her own district.
Also, this is where we remind you filthy fuckaducks that we know our readers have a range of VERY STRONG OPINIONS on Israel and Gaza, the commenting rules still apply, and if you get all pissy with each other Yr Editrix will turn this blog right around and close the comments, thank you.
In other primary news, it was a very crap night for Trump-endorsed candidates in safe red seats, with Trumpy Republicans losing primaries in Utah, South Carolina, and in Colorado, oh how very sad. (Speaking of Colorado, Lauren Boebert easily won her primary in her new district, which was no surprise going in.)
In the primary to fill the Senate seat of Mitt Romney, Utah Republicans chose Rep. John Curtis over challenger Trent Staggs, who was endorsed by Trump just before the state party convention. Curtis is what passes for a moderate in the GOP these days: Like Romney, he’s willing to criticize Trump while usually voting along with the crazies who run the party. Curtis called for Trump to be censured after January 6, so obviously Trump couldn’t support him.
Trump-endorsed Colorado state GOP chair Dave Williams lost a race for the House to the well-named rightwing local radio pundit Jeff Crank; Williams had pissed off fellow Republicans for letting his culture wars ass show when he
sent out an email from the state GOP account titled “God Hates Pride” that described LGBTQ+ people as “godless groomers” and “creeps.” His colleagues also accused him of using state party funds on his congressional race.
In a purple state, Republicans don’t like it when somebody goes and makes the party look crazier than they’d like.
And in South Carolina, Trumpy Black pastor Mark Burns (who ages ago tried to defend Trump’s shithole countries comments by waving a Bible at them) narrowly lost in a primary runoff for a congressional seat to Sherri Biggs, a nurse practitioner who might be saner than Burns, since Burns
had called for teachers who push an LGBTQ+ agenda in schools to “be immediately terminated,” lied about obtaining a bachelor’s degree, misrepresented his military service and urged protesters in Washington ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
With credentials like that, you can see why Burns got the Trump endorsement.
As Politico notes, Trump’s primary endorsements prior to June have been pretty successful this year, in part because a lot of them have gone to frontrunners and to candidates their own state GOP backed. But people he’s backed have lost primaries this month in New Jersey and Indiana, and the race is still too close to call in Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, where Trump spite-endorsed state Sen. John McGuire III’s bid to turf out Freedom Caulker Bob Good. Even with no actual result in the primary — he’s down by less than 400 votes to McGuire — Good is raising funds for a recount and calling the vote RIGGED AND STOLLEN.
In conclusion, we wish we could close with some cute news about a spunky 12-year-old winning a small town mayoral primary because her town didn’t specify a minimum age to be on the ballot, but it’s not one of those years we guess.
PREVIOUSLY!
[TPM / NBC News New York / Politico]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if a one-time donation is your cup of tranya, we would relish it as much as you.
"he supports ending funding of the “Iron Dome” missile defense"
OK--whatever one's opinions about how Israel is conducting the war in Gaza may be (and I have a few thoughts about Netanyahu, which are not favorable to him)...in what way will defunding an actual defensive measure for Israel contribute to the freedom of Palestine?
/FFS
I don't really have an opinion on this. Is that OK?