Sunrise Can't Save You

Jamaal Bowman made mistakes The Groups cannot correct

Six years after AOC shocked the world in a low-turnout Democratic primary in New York, high turnout and predictable missteps are poised to send Jamaal Bowman and the Squad to a new level of irrelevance.

It has been clear for several years now: Progressivism Has Peaked. If you want to see the Far Left’s high-water mark, look backwards. If you want to see the sad reality, check out the small crowd size and weather-related excuses of the AOC and Bernie rally over the weekend. Or check out the past five years of primary election results.

This cycle has been a third straight primary-season disaster for progressives, starting with losing two Oregon primaries. Elizabeth Warren-endorsed Jamie McLeod-Skinner and Susheela Jayapal both lost handily to more mainstream Democrats. Warren ally, endorsee and protege Katie Porter lost to Adam Schiff in the California Senate primary. In Maryland, Harry Dunn, a U.S. Capitol Police officer with the backing of the Progressive Caucus, lost to moderate Sarah Elfreth, and April Delaney bested state legislator Joe Vogel who ran as a progressive and criticized Delaney for her friendships with Republicans. 

Being progressive was always an albatross in a general election, but now being associated with Warren, Sanders and other progressives is electoral poison in Democratic primaries as well. Outside of the paid DC activist class, Warren and Sanders simply don’t resonate with Democrats. 

To be sure, all was not lost for progressives; the challenge to Summer Lee in southwestern Pennsylvania fell short, for example. But Jamaal Bowman’s vulnerability to Westchester County Executive George Latimer should set off alarms – sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves – for the Far Left that voters are no longer buying what it’s selling, and that the progressive movement’s antics have worn thin with their alleged base. Persuadable voters who decide elections want to fight authoritarians like Trump, not be lectured by the sanctimonious left. 

What Went Wrong

While progressives are already blaming AIPAC spending for Bowman’s likely loss, the reality is that outside spending can only defeat an incumbent who already suffers from a weak relationship with constituents. As Daniel Marans details extensively, Bowman’s real problem comes from the way he has alienated many past supporters with his extremist rhetoric. In his 2022 re-election, Bowman won only 54% of the vote, weakness that was masked by the fact that he faced two challengers who split the vote against him. 

Bowman was not effective at building relationships in his district, and he was too focused on playing to the online crowd from the Sunrise Movement, Democratic Socialists of America, Indivisible, Working Families Party, and Justice Democrats – also known collectively as “the groups.” 

A fateful example of how these organizations siren-songed Bowman to defeat is his vote against one of President Biden’s signature policy accomplishments: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), often referred to as “the bipartisan infrastructure law.” His vote against the bill featured heavily in the attack ads against him. People like roads, they like bridges, they like broadband access, and they like officeholders who vote in favor of building and maintaining them, rather than voting to obstruct them.

As New York Times columnist Pamela Paul put it in a Tuesday column curtly headlined, “Jamaal Bowman Deserves to Lose,” the incumbent “voted against Biden’s infrastructure bill, one of the administration’s key bipartisan successes and fundamental to Biden’s re-election, which hinges on independents and the center. By contrast, Latimer has shown himself successful in helping turn a largely Republican district blue and is supportive of abortion rights, gun control and other domestic issues aligned with his district.”

For those who spent the early days of the Biden administration enjoying life in a Trump-free America, rather than glued to their screens ingesting or spewing rage-tweets, let’s briefly revisit some crucial history. 

Taking office in 2021, Biden had three core, out-of-the-gate domestic policy priorities: pass an infrastructure bill, pass a domestic health care and clean energy spending bill, and pass a supply-chain competition bill. The infrastructure bill and supply-chain competition bill were both bipartisan and had clear paths to passage. The domestic health care and clean energy spending bill relied on the votes of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, both of them at the time still members of the Democratic Party. Sinema was skeptical of its large tax hikes to pay for domestic spending and Manchin was concerned its climate provisions would hurt West Virginia and that it did not do enough to reduce the deficit. 

Progressives devised a strategy to oppose the bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to convince Manchin and Sinema (who supported the bipartisan infrastructure bill) to go along with the domestic health care and clean energy spending bill. As many commentators noted at the time, the logic didn’t really make sense. Progressives didn’t have the votes to kill the bill, so it would just leave them voting against an infrastructure bill that invested in clean water pipes, electric vehicles, and improved infrastructure – all objectives for which they professed support. But progressives felt that they had power and wanted to finally play hardball, and groups like Justice Democrats, Sunrise and Indivisible encouraged their allies to vote against the bill, one of the signature accomplishments of the Biden administration.

Here’s how the professional left approached it. Max Berger, a “strategist” who worked for Justice Democrats and Working Families Party was asked about the Democratic opposition to the bill in the wake of its passage:

But progressives like Berger see that tough vote as a vindication of why the Squad was sent to Congress in the first place: to do difficult things in service of achieving real progressive wins that they campaigned on.

They failed, at least in the short term, but if there were more progressives willing to vote ‘no’ that night, things might have gone differently. “I don’t think this is a cause for recalibration of the overall strategy,” said Berger. “It shows we need more people like this in Congress.”

Their stand might have been praised as a fierce fight for the left’s values. But politically, those who took it will be lucky if many of their constituents forget about it. And there’s a real risk many could remember it as a reason to think twice about supporting them.

Either way, progressive advocates seem satisfied that the worst case will be avoided. “If we’re ever going to get to a politics that’s more than taking a poll of what’s popular and reflecting it back to people, we have to have politicians willing to take hard votes and communicate why,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible.

Leah Greenberg’s organization, Indivisible, which had whipped members against the infrastructure bill, did not spend any money to defend Bowman.

We tell this history because the narrative around Bowman’s loss is almost certain to focus on AIPAC money instead of the real, clear reason: Sunrise, Working Families Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats and Indivisible are bad at politics, and they risked their candidates’ and elected adherents’ careers on an unrealistic gambit that didn’t work and cost them their seats. Progressives aren’t being held back by big money, they are being held back by bad decisions. 

Bowman dug himself a hole by pulling a fire alarm for no reason and sharing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He was dragged far out of the mainstream on Israel in his quest to appeal to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who had previously thrown him out of their party. And then, when Bowman needed them most, these groups disappeared, leaving him to lose as they moved onto pitching donors on their next project. 

Faction Time in the Center

Progressives may not be finished losing. Cori Bush faces a competitive primary in August and is being outraised by mainstream Democrat Wesley Bell and outspent on the airwaves (again, progressives have yet to come to her aid). Like Bowman, ads against Bush are centering the ways she opposed Biden’s agenda including the bipartisan infrastructure law. Ilhan Omar, who came within a hair of losing last time, will likely face an intense barrage as AIPAC and others realize the electoral weakness of a Squad subset. 

Whatever the outcome of those races, it’s clear the momentum is no longer with the left. There is a real question for incumbent Democrats why they would want to try to appease a block of voters and activists who 1) cannot be appeased and 2) any attempts to appease will alienate 90% of other Democrats. Even Bernie Sanders has found himself in the position of being unable to appease the radical elements on the far left. 

This vacuum creates an opportunity for the growing centrist faction to continue its growth and define the Democratic Party. Instead of endlessly trying to appeal to people who have a fundamentally unserious approach to politics, Democrats can look to the thriving ecosystem of winners who have practical and implementable ideas on clean energy, housing and schools. This centrist faction offers pragmatic policies that can pass, not unachievable promises that only disappoint. We can build a Democratic Party that wins moderates and independents to build a durable coalition against authoritarianism.

This centrist faction offers pragmatic policies that can pass, not unachievable promises that only disappoint. We can build a Democratic Party that wins moderates and independents to build a durable coalition against authoritarianism. As Paul noted about the Bowman-Latimer contest, “This election is also about the future of the Democratic Party, pitting a centrist vision of the party, the growing resonance of which was recently demonstrated by the election of Tom Suozzi in Nassau County, against its progressive fringe.”

Sunrise can’t save you, but an organized center of the Democratic Party can save democracy.