NEW YORK — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Rep. Jamaal Bowman, donated to his campaign — and otherwise kind of phoned it in.
Jeffries, who represents a Brooklyn-based district, recorded a robocall this week for his vulnerable colleague up in Westchester County in lieu of being an active, visible presence on the campaign trail.
And after the votes were counted, he didn’t seem that upset about Bowman’s defeat.
“The results speak for themselves. The voters have spoken,” Jeffries said plainly Wednesday morning after Bowman’s brutal loss. “And we accept those results across the board, across the country.”
Despite Jeffries’ Bowman endorsement — as party leader, he’s obligated to support all incumbents in primaries — moderate George Latimer’s blowout victory was actually more in line with Jeffries’ posture in the ideological rift currently roiling New York Democratic politics.
Many of Bowman’s liberal allies say Jeffries should’ve done more to protect his colleague.
“Jamaal Bowman was an incumbent. Hakeem Jeffries is the leader of the Democratic caucus. So this is a loss for us and a loss for him,” Usamah Andrabi of Justice Democrats said in an interview.
“I think as the Democratic Party, we should be pretty aligned on what we want to see in our democracy. And I don’t think breaking records on super PAC spending is that,” Andrabi added.
That’s a reference to the roughly $15 million spent by United Democracy Project, the super PAC arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which opposed Bowman — but has endorsed Jeffries’ reelection.
Other Bowman allies called on Jeffries to disengage from AIPAC.
“We write today with dire concerns about what your continued association with AIPAC means for the future of the Democratic Party, the future of our multiracial democracy, and the future of our planet,” a coalition of 14 left-leaning and hard-left groups, including NYC-DSA, a Democratic socialist organization, wrote in a letter to Jeffries.
It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between Jeffries and DSA or Justice Democrats, the group that propelled now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to a shocking primary upset over then-House Minority Whip Joe Crowley in a Queens-and-Bronx district back in 2018.
Jefrries’ spokesperson responded by stressing his commitment to win back the gavel in November, then mocking Justice Democrats for citing a goal in 2017 to “destroy the Democratic Party.”
“They have failed miserably in every way. Is anyone surprised?” Christie Stephenson told the New York Times.
Additionally, Jeffries senior adviser André Richardson crowed on X that the Jeffries now has a 6-0 record of supporting local and state New York Democrats who faced DSA challengers.
Jeffries was especially involved in state Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman’s successful effort to ward off progressive Eon Huntley in his Brooklyn backyard.
On Capitol Hill, Bowman’s fellow Squad members focused their ire on AIPAC more than Jeffries.
“To me, this is not about leadership. What it should be is about all of us trying to actually have a conversation about the role of AIPAC,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The deep-pocketed lobby pointed Playbook to a past comment about its bipartisanship: United Democracy Project has played in primaries in both parties so far this year, though the vast majority of its spending has been in Democratic races from Orange County, Calif., to Annapolis, Md.
“We support candidates from both parties solely based on one criterion — their commitment to strengthening the US-Israel relationship,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann said.
Daniella Diaz and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
A version of this story first appeared Thursday in New York Playbook. Subscribe here.
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