He joked on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” exchanged poetry with rapper Cash Cobain and rallied over the weekend with two of the left’s biggest names, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, overwhelmingly popular on television but lagging in the polls, is leaning heavily on his national star power in a last-minute attempt to change the trajectory of what is expected to be the most competitive Democratic primary in the country.
The megawatt event sharply highlighted the political contrast between the congressman and his rival, George Latimer, but it also showed how the candidates are betting on starkly different paths to victory in a district divided between affluent suburbs and working-class areas, and among white, Black and Latino voters.
“This is a turnout election,” Bowman said Friday at an event with Sanders in Hastings-on-Hudson, just north of his hometown of Yonkers. “This is not about persuasion. We have our supporters. They have their supporters.”
Instead of courting Latimer’s supporters in the party’s core, Bowman, 48, embraced the left-wing positions that helped make him a national celebrity: He denounced big corporations and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s record financial attacks on him and hoped to increase turnout among progressives and voters of color.
Latimer, a centrist Democrat and Westchester County mayor, has run largely alone in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary without any fanfare or celebrity surrogates.
Mr. Latimer had enough confidence among older suburbanites in the final days of the campaign, making multiple trips to Co-op City in the Bronx and around Mr. Bowman’s home, pitching himself as a drama-free alternative to the two-term incumbent. While pro-Israel political groups bombarded Mr. Bowman with $15 million in negative advertising, Mr. Latimer, 70, largely played it safe.
His brief musical performance before a few hundred senior citizens at the Ukrainian Youth Center in Yonkers on Thursday was his own surprisingly smooth version of “Like You Do” from the movie “My Fair Lady.”
Clearly, the song had a message.
“That’s the whole difference between us,” Latimer said later. “I’m a local guy. It seems counterintuitive when you look at our ages and our demographics. But he’s someone who’s cultivated a national image.”
Latimer entered the race late last year largely after Jewish leaders urged him to oppose Bowman’s public criticism of Israel’s war with Hamas, but he has consistently emphasized local issues, criticizing Bowman for voting against a major Biden infrastructure bill that promised to rebuild roads and replace old water mains in his district, as well as for neglecting some of his predominantly white neighborhoods.
Bowman, the first Black member of Congress to represent the district, was outraged by the portrayal and accused Latimer of being a racist.
Mr. Bowman has also tried to inject some humor these days: He bounced around and rapped onstage at his campaign concerts aimed at young voters in predominantly Latino Port Chester, he played basketball with boys in the Bronx and a high-tech videographer shot footage for social media.
Saturday’s rally by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez was held in the South Bronx, a few miles from Bowman’s district. Groups including the Sunrise Movement, Democratic Socialists of America and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice sent representatives despite the scorching heat, but relatively few identified themselves as voters in Bowman’s district.
“This election is not about Jamal versus Latimer,” said Sanders, the Vermont independent. “This election is about whether the billionaire class and the oligarchs control the United States government.”
Ocasio-Cortez defended Bowman against accusations that she is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic for calling for a ceasefire and an end to US military aid to Israel.
“We know that the total destruction of Gaza is being paid for with funds cut from our health care, our schools,” she said. “We cannot support that any more. We can’t. It’s not extreme. It’s not heresy. It’s not bigotry to want everyone to be protected.”
Bowman struck a more confrontational tone, blasting the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, which has spent more money trying to defeat Bowman than any other third-party group in the House race.
“People ask me why I’m abusive,” he said. “What am I supposed to do? They’re coming after me. They’re coming after my family. They’re coming after my children. Shouldn’t I fight back?”
He also accused his opponent of supporting genocide in Gaza.
A spokesman for Latimer’s campaign fired back: “Jamaal Bowman’s divisive and disingenuous attacks, combined with anti-Semitic dog whistles, are turning voters against him in droves,” he said.
In a sign of how deeply the conflict has divided the left, Saturday’s rally drew dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters angry that Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Mr Sanders and Mr Bowman had endorsed Mr Biden while the Biden administration remained sided with Israel.
They banged drums and chanted “Say it loud and clear: We don’t want a traitor here” and “AOC, you’re a con artist,” using Ocasio-Cortez’s initials during politicians’ speeches.
“These are people who call themselves our allies,” said Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Palestinian group that organized the protest. “We are They are held to the standards they set. Set it for yourself.”
The district has a significant Jewish population, and there are signs that Jewish voters are turning out in large numbers to vote early, which is likely good news for Latimer.
The Teach Coalition, a group that promotes the interests of yeshivas and other Jewish schools, spent $1 million during the election to register 2,000 Republican and independent voters as Democrats and to bring Jewish voters to the polls. It seems to be working.
The group estimated Friday that Jewish voters likely accounted for 36% of early votes so far, even though they make up just 9% of the district’s overall electorate.
Coalition leader Maury Litwak stressed that the voter turnout drive was bipartisan, but added that “anyone who has watched this race will tell you the overwhelming sentiment in the Jewish community is leaning toward Latimer, not Bowman.”
Latimer was also well-received by the diverse group of older people he met in Yonkers, who greeted him with applause, many of whom said they had followed his career for decades.
“He’s a uniter, not a divider,” said Susan Greenberg, a retired health care administrator from Hastings-on-Hudson. “That’s been going on for a long time.”
Kenneth Diaz, a Yonkers real estate agent and self-described “Bernie nut” who attended the luncheon, said the race has been “painful to watch.” He has been an enthusiastic supporter of Bowman and believes he’s right about the Gaza war.
But Diaz said Bowman lost ground last fall when he pulled a fire alarm in a congressional office building while rushing to the Capitol. The false alarm sparked chaos in Congress and led to a misdemeanor charge, another embarrassment for a nation that fears Diaz is losing its sense of decorum.
“It was a stupid thing to do,” he said, “and I understand why he did it, but it still doesn’t make him fit for that position.”
Molly Longman Contributed report.
