Revenge of the Moderates: Jamaal Bowman, Mark Burns, and More Lose Primaries

The death of centrism may greatly exaggerated. In last night’s primaries across Colorado, New York, South Carolina, and Utah, voters from both parties revolted against extremist candidates on both sides of the aisle in favor of moderate candidates.

Bowman loses in NY16 as Jewish turnout surges

The marquee race of the night was in New York’s 16th congressional district, where incumbent Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman faced a challenge from popular Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Bowman, a progressive member of the Squad, was seen as increasingly vulnerable due to his anti-Zionist record in Congress and his increasingly erratic behavior, which culminated last October in him pulling a fire alarm, seemingly with the intent of delaying a vote in the House.

Latimer, a moderate, was seen as the best bet by mainstream Democrats to take Bowman down. He pointed to Bowman’s votes against Biden-backed bills, arguing he’d do a better job of enacting progressive policies through pragmatic politics. Polls throughout the race favored him by wide margins, and he received the support of prominent New York Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Mondaire Jones. The race saw the noticeable involved of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which spent nearly $15 million in the primary.

By the end of the primary, Bowman’s campaign – already openly anti-Zionist – had seemingly moved to outright hostility to Jews. Bowman blamed Jews for segregation in Westchester County, adopted what Amanda German of the Daily Beast described as “antisemitic-coded slurs” while campaigning, denounced AIPAC as the “Zionist regime”, and declared opposition to Iron Dome funding. It’s no surprise that the district saw record Jewish turnout in early voting. According to the Jewish voter registration group Westchester Unites, Jews account for around 9% of the district’s voting-age primary composition, but accounted for 43% of mail-in voting requests.

As the polls predicted, this race wasn’t even close. Latimer currently holds a 17-point lead, a margin that will likely increase slightly as vote counts from Westchester County finalize. While Bowman carried the Bronx portion of the district by an 84-16 margin, this only accounts for around 10% of the total primary vote. In Westchester County, Latimer leads by a decisive 26-point margin.

Extremists lose in Colorado, South Carolina, and Utah

On the Republican side, congressional primaries in three states marked a setback for the Trump-supported far right-wing. In Colorado, the state’s Republican Party, led by right-wing provocateur Dave Williams, broke its neutrality by endorsing a string of far-right candidates, including Ron Hanks in the 3rd district and Williams in the 5th. Williams had also been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Both candidates lost by wide margins; Hanks trails established-favored attorney Jeff Hurd by 13 points, while Williams lost to talk radio host Jeff Crank by over 30 points.

The progressive left suffered a setback in Colorado, where two far-left incumbent state house reps lost bids for renomination. In the 4th district, Tim Hernández – who had to apologize last October after failing to condemn Hamas following the October 7 attacks – lost by nine points to moderate Cecelia Espenoza. And in the 6th district, Elisabeth Epps – the only incumbent Democrat to not receive Governor Jared Polis’s endorsement – trailed moderate challenger Sean Camacho by an even wider 28-point margin.

In an even more surprising result, extremist pro-Trump pastor Mark Burns lost the South Carolina 3rd district primary to nurse practitioner Sheri Biggs. Burns had been endorsed by Trump, but faced a slew of issues as a candidate – according to POLITICO, he “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”. Biggs, in contrast, had been endorsed by Governor Henry McMaster.

Republican extremists also faced a setback in Utah, where Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Trent Skaggs lost to Rep. John Curtis by a 20-point margin. Curtis, a former Democrat and mayor of Provo, is a member of all three centrist Republican House coalitions (the Problem Solvers Caucus, Republican Governance Group, and Republican Main Street Caucus). He will likely take a similar stance in the Senate as the retiring Senator Mitt Romney. A far-right challenge to incumbent Governor Spencer Cox, a moderate, also fell short. The lone success for the right in Utah was in the 3rd district, where Mike Kennedy won with 37% of the vote in a divided field.