The New York Times has a report today on a number of potential primary challenges bubbling up against New York Democrats in the House in the mold of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ historic upset of Joe Crowley.
According to the Times, “as many as a half-dozen Congress members in and around New York City” may face a challenge from “insurgent” Democrats—including high-profile members like Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
As Politico reported last week, Nadler is one of the Democrats being targeted by Tom Steyer’s utterly moronic campaign to impeach Trump. Steyer’s group plans to spend upwards of $40 million on those efforts this year, and the Times reported that a “$200,000 direct mail, television and digital ad campaign” against Nadler will begin this week. That could help whoever runs against him, but I suspect the constituency of voters who are primarily motivated by which candidate will agree to try and impeach Trump is actually rather small. But the only potential challenger to Nadler that the Times mentions is Lindsey Boylan, a former Andrew Cuomo adviser who supports the deal to give Amazon billions to bring their headquarters to New York, so we’ll have to wait and see if leftists can mount a challenge to her challenge.
The incumbents quoted by the Times are, unsurprisingly, somewhat dismissive of the idea of challengers. Rep. Carolyn Maloney made sure to note that her opponent Suraj Patel, who won far more votes than Ocasio-Cortez did and, according to the paper, is considering another run, “was soundly defeated after all was said and done.” Rep. Eliot Engel said focusing on the 2020 primaries is a “a disservice” to the country.
But, as Maria L. Svart, the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, told the paper: “They should be afraid.” No amount of dismissive quotes to the Times can fend off the next Ocasio-Cortez forever.
The only person who can rest a little easy is Chuck Schumer—because he’s not up until 2022. If God smiles upon us, we’ll be reading the same article about a leftist challenge to him—perhaps even from Ocasio-Cortez herself—in two years’ time.