<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div>If Hillary Clinton is "Queen of the Warmongers," Eliot Engel is their Crown Prince. He voted for the Iraq war. He voted against the Iran nuclear deal. He voted to keep sending cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia to use in Yemen. He helped block the first introduction of the Yemen War Powers Resolution in the House. He helped sabotage the second one. He helped Pelosi keep Ciciline's Venezuela War Powers Resolution from getting a vote on the floor. He tried to cram an unconstitutional endorsement of an unauthorized war in Syria through the House, and he likely would have gotten away with it if the CPC hadn't stopped him. <br></div><div><br></div><div>If Engel goes down like Crowley, House Dems will get to pick a new leader on HFAC. It won't make a dime's bit of difference to that if Jamaal Bowman is Jesus Christ the Savior. If Engel goes down like Crowley, House Dems will get to pick a new leader on HFAC.</div><div><br></div><div>If House Dems get to pick a new leader on HFAC, maybe we can have a real debate about how the sausages of Democratic policy on endless wars are produced. Maybe we can even argue that the chair of HFAC shouldn't automatically go to whoever raises the most Benjamins from Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Haim Saban. Nor her designee. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Let Justice Democrats roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. <br></div><div><br></div><div>End these regime change wars.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/10/20/eliot-engel-jamaal-bowman-progressive-new-york-primary/" target="_blank">https://theintercept.com/2019/10/20/eliot-engel-jamaal-bowman-progressive-new-york-primary/</a></div><div><h1>In New York’s 16th Congressional District, a Troubling Early Poll for Longtime Incumbent Eliot Engel</h1><div><div><a rel="author" href="https://theintercept.com/staff/akelalacy/" target="_blank"><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/10/download-1537393236-1539632960.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&h=60&w=60" width="60" height="60"></a></div><div><a rel="author" href="https://theintercept.com/staff/akelalacy/" target="_blank"><span>Akela Lacy</span></a></div><br><span><span>October 20 2019, 9:00 p.m.</span></span></div><div><span><span><br></span></span></div><div><p><u>Six in 10</u> registered Democrats in New York’s 16th
Congressional District aren’t sure who they’ll vote for in the June 2020
primary — despite longtime incumbent House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliot
Engel’s place on the ballot — according to a new poll from Data for
Progress.</p><div><p>The burgeoning uncertainty over Engel’s
reelection is just the latest example of an upending of politics as
usual in the Democratic Party. The most famous upset of a Democratic
congressional incumbent by a progressive primary challenger came in
2018, when now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/11/07/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-election-victory-midterms-2018/" target="_blank">shocked</a> the political classes by unseating a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/05/22/joseph-crowley-alexandra-ocasio-cortez-new-york-primary/" target="_blank">machine-backed</a> Queens Democrat and landing on Capitol Hill.</p>
<p>Engel, who has served 16 terms in Congress, is facing <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/06/18/eliot-engel-primary-challenge/" target="_blank">two primary challengers</a>
next June: Jamaal Bowman, a middle school principal from the Bronx
who’s endorsed by the progressive group Justice Democrats, and Andom
Ghebreghiorgis, a special education teacher born to parents who
immigrated to the U.S. from Eritrea.</p></div><div style="width:1024px"><div><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/10/20190617-CoreyTorpie-CampaignLaunch-5-1571422768.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=683" alt="Jamaal">
<p>Jamaal Bowman during his campaign launch at the Bronx on June 18, 2019.</p>
<p>
Photo: Corey Torpie Photography/Courtesy of Jamaal Bowman For Congress</p></div></div><div><p>The new <a href="http://filesforprogress.org/memos/DFP_NY_16_Poll.pdf" target="_blank">poll</a>
from the progressive think tank Data for Progress, which is aligned
with Bowman, surveyed 578 registered Democrats in New York’s 16th
District between September 9 and 13. Half of the registered Democrats in
the district said they were not sure how to describe Engel’s political
viewpoint. If the primary were held today, 29 percent said they would
vote for Engel, and 10 percent said they would support Bowman. One
percent said the would vote for Ghebreghiorgis. Bowman’s campaign has
raised <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/H0NY16143/" target="_blank">$189,000</a> to Engel’s <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/H8NY19058/" target="_blank">$566,200</a>. Ghebreghiorgis has raised <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/H0NY16135/" target="_blank">$67,400</a> so far.</p><div><p>The poll results represented a relatively
slim lead for such an entrenched incumbent — and progressive activists
see the weakness as an opening for one of the challengers. “This is a
wide open race, Engel is extremely vulnerable, and Jamaal, as a longtime
middle school principal in the district, has the momentum and record of
service to win this,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of
Justice Democrats.</p>
<p>Over his three decades in Congress, Engel has built a reputation for
being hawkish on foreign policy and friendly toward Wall Street. Like
many other Democrats, he voted for the Iraq War, the 1994 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/politics/joe-bidens-role-in-90s-crime-law-could-haunt-any-presidential-bid.html" target="_blank">crime bill</a>, and to <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/106-1999/h570" target="_blank">repeal</a>
parts of the Glass-Steagall regulations on Wall Street. Engel initially
opposed the Iran nuclear deal, but now says he supports it.</p>
<p>Bowman is busy hitting Engel for his hawkish policies. The
challenger’s website says his campaign is about supporting “schools and
education, not bombs and incarceration.” He’s in favor of Medicare for
All, a Green New Deal, and reforming the criminal justice system. Bowman
pledged to refuse corporate PAC money and has criticized Engel’s
reliance on <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00001003" target="_blank">PAC money</a> and large-dollar contributions.</p>
<p>Ghebreghiorgis said that the poll shows vulnerability. “What does it
say that a 16-term incumbent can’t count on the support of even 1 in 3
voters in the district?” he said. “From my conversations with voters
across the district, I know that they want an end to politics as usual —
big money and special interests, forever wars, mass incarceration,
housing unaffordability, and income inequality. They want new leadership
and transformational change from someone homegrown. We are the only
campaign that has a detailed platform and vision rooted in economic,
racial, and environmental justice and international solidarity.”</p>
<p>The primary is still eight months away, and it’s normal for a large
portion of voters to still be undecided. But the fact that voters in the
district can’t describe the political ideology of an official who has
represented the state for some 30 years underscores the argument made by
both challengers that he’s lost touch with his constituents. Engel
represented the 16th District since 2013, holding seats in the 17th and
19th districts before that. He was a New York state assemblyman from
1977 to 1988, when he was first elected to Congress.</p><div><p>At this stage in the race, Engel’s lukewarm
standing sets up a promising path for Bowman as momentum builds behind a
number of primary challengers in neighboring districts and across the
country. In comparison, with three weeks left to go before
Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 primary, the incumbent’s internal polling had him
up by 36 points.</p>
<p>The primary in the 16th District is one of Justice Democrats’ top
priorities this cycle, along with challenges to other powerful members
of the House in Massachusetts, Texas, and Ohio, among others.</p>
<p>Half of respondents in the district described themselves as liberal
or very liberal. Thirty-eight percent say they’re moderate. Twenty-five
percent described Engel as moderate.</p>
<p>The report on the poll says, “Bowman has been able to break through
more than Ghebreghiorgis, and commands more support in the horserace and
higher name identification.” The poll, however, reported that 59
percent of respondents still said they had never heard of Bowman, and 75
percent said the same for Ghebreghiorgis.</p><p><br></p></div></div></div><span><span></span></span></div></div></div>
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