By Dan Murphy
The biggest takeaway from Primary night in New York State on June 23 was that progressive democratic candidates had large leads over their opponents in the ‘Big Three’ races in Westchester, with District Attorney candidate Mimi Rocah, and Congressional candidates Jamaal Bowman, (16th District), and Mondaire Jones, (17th District) in front of their fellow democratic candidates.
But the remaining tens of thousands of absentee ballots have yet to be counted, and will not be counted until early July. Because of the Coronavirus, all New Yorkers were allowed to receive an absentee ballot and cast their vote from home in this year’s primary.
Those absentee ballots give hope to incumbent Westchester District Attorney Anthony Scarpino, and Congressman Eliot Engel, and one of the other six candidates running to replace Congresswoman Nita Lowey in the 17th District.
But hope may not be enough for Scarpino and Engel, based on the results from Primary night, and the overall trend, which is that progressive democrats pulled out their base of voters, and those progressive voters had much more enthusiasm to support Rocah, Bowman and Jones on June 23.
Rocah almost claimed victory on primary night, stating“While tonight’s results are preliminary, and it is imperative that every vote is counted, our lead is extremely strong and the strength of our support so far makes it clear that we will win this primary. We look forward to focusing on and winning the election in November, and reforming criminal justice in our county”
Rocah received 68% of the vote to Scarpino’s 32%, a more than 2 to 1 margin over a sitting, incumbent DA. Rocah’s campaign had been extrememely agreesive campaigning against Scarpino’s record, or lack of prosecution of some cases involving police corruption. The momentum in the DA’s race always seemed to be with Rocah, and the killing of George Floyd did not help Scarpino’s core issue for re-eleciton, that he was the law and order candidate and former FBI agent.
Scarprino’s campaign did try to explain to democratic voters that he had checked all of the progressive boxes on the issues before his office, like not prosecuting small marijuana offenses and not asking for bail in many minor criminal cases before bail reform became state law.
One local Democratic primary here in Westchester became national news on June 23, with MSNBC focusing on Jamaal Bowman’s apparent victory over 32 year incumbent Congressman Eliot Engel. Bowman has quickly become 2020’s version of AOC, Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who shocked the country when she defeated Congressman Joe Crowley in 2018.
Bowman received the support and endorsement from AOC, and from Bernie Sanders, and other progressive, indivisible groups, who were organized and were seen handing out literature in Yonkers in the days before the primary.
Bowman also appears to have survived an onslaught of negative advertisements against him by Engel and his supporters, all of which made no differnence in the result so far, with Bowman leading Engel by 20 points.
“The thing I’m most grateful for about this campaign is all the people coming together across our beautiful differences, Imagine what America could become if we could come together and take on the people on top who want to divide us up,” tweeted Bowman, a 44-year old former NYC schools principal who lives in Yonkers.
In the 17th Congressional District, which includes mid-northern Westchester and Rockland County. Seven democrats were vying to repalce longtime Congresswoman Nita Lowey. Results from primary night, show Mondaire Jones, a progressive activist and former attorney in the Westchester County law department, who as he likes to say during the campaign, wants to become the first gay, black member on Congress, leading with 44% of the vote.
Former prosecutor Adam Schleifer is second with 20%, and State Senator David Carlucci at 13%. Further behind are former Defense Department official Evelyn Farkas, Assemblyman David Buchwald, professor and veteran Asha Castleberry-Hernandez, and activist Allison Fine, all with less than 10% of the vote.
Based on the votes counted so far, and the fact that all three progressive democratic candiates in Westchester are way ahead, it appears that Rocah, Bowman and Jones have all won. But the unknown is how many of the 100,000 absentee ballots that were mailed out to Westchester democrats were mailed back into the BOE.
In the Engel-Bowman race, you can also factor in another 700,000 ballots from the Bronx. Will those votes come back in the same proportions as the votes cast in polling places on primary night? Or are the absentee ballots more inclined to be older voters who are more inlcined to vote for Engel, Scarpino or Buchwald?
