Disappointing to say the least. Another huge loss for the polling industry.
It's interesting to contrast this race and its result with NY-16 last year. Bowman, like Turner, upheld a progressive program, had the animosity of Clinton, Clyburn and the CBC, and was outspent by outside groups incl. DMFI donating millions to the opposing candidate. Bowman was also criticized by Engel and his surrogates for controversial statements about Israel, and rallied endorsements from Sanders and AOC. Yet Bowman crushed Engel by 15 points. Why then did Turner have such an uphill battle? Did it simply come down to perceived loyalty to Biden and the Democrats, and the DMFI/Third Way ads repeating attack ads? Or do we just need to find more out-of-touch incumbents?
Regardless, it's undoubtedly a painful L for progressives. Hopefully we see some primary wins in 2022.
Impression I got was that Engel was a lot more unpopular and it’s much easier to run as a progressive against an incumbent with a sh**t record compared to against some random state legislator.
Fair enough, though Engel never struck me as an unpopular incumbent until that election.
Engel’s primary happened when BLM was taking off and he made the “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care,” gaffe.
It is notable that a lot of primary upsets/near upsets happened in NY in 2020.
