Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel (NY-16) was first elected in 1988 and is now the eighth most senior Democrat in the House. But after the events of the past week, he's in deep danger of becoming the next Rep. Joe Crowley in the June 23 primary against Justice Democrat and Bronx middle school principal Jamaal Bowman, who was just endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14).
Over the course of three decades, Engel, 73, has kept a lock on his majority-minority Bronx and Westchester district thanks to strong support from Jewish Democrats in his Riverdale base and strategic alliances with local African-American officials. But the current national crises have highlighted Engel's intermittent personal presence in the district and emboldened progressive activists hungry for another statement upset.
Engel's district surged into the national news in early March when suburban New Rochelle was designated the first COVID-19 hotspot outside Seattle, and the Bronx has since seen some of the highest fatality rates in the country. Yet a May 14 report in the Atlantic found that the congressman hadn't returned to the district
Subscribe Today
Our subscribers have first access to individual race pages for each House, Senate and Governors race, which will include race ratings (each race is rated on a seven-point scale) and a narrative analysis pertaining to that race.