George Latimer won his heated Democratic primary against Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a landslide. But Latimer is still smarting over the caricature of him that was drawn by the left: A MAGA-lite Democrat who is squishy on abortion rights and opposed to affordable housing in the expensive Westchester County suburbs. Now, Latimer is running for the seat outright in a general election that he is heavily favored to win. He’ll be doing so without the backing of the Working Families Party, the left-leaning ballot line Bowman will retain in November. (Bowman’s team has said he won’t actively run — limiting the number of votes Latimer would potentially lose). The clearest breaking point between Latimer and left-leaning activists was his staunch backing of Israel. And as more moderate Democrats try to re-center the party’s politics in suburban swing areas of New York, the WFP is increasingly willing to withhold its support. Latimer’s embrace of Israel — and Bowman’s criticism of the country — led the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to spend more than $14 million in the district. The unprecedented sum made it the most expensive House primary in the nation’s history. Now neither Latimer nor the WFP are willing to set their differences aside. “I’ve run on the Working Families Party line in every election since time began,” Latimer told Playbook. “But in this election, they turned on me pretty viciously. There were a lot of nasty things they said about me that really wasn’t warranted.” WFP spokesperson Ravi Mangla said throwing the party’s support to Latimer in the fall is a non-starter. “When it became clear that George Latimer planned to use racist dog whistles and hold fundraisers with GOP donors, we knew we couldn’t offer him our ballot line,” Mangla said. Bowman allies have also noted the many attacks lobbed by Latimer and his affiliates during the campaign. Both sides accused the other of racism in the final days of the primary. Given the Democratic domination of the Westchester-Bronx House seat, GOP candidate Miriam Flisser is considered a long shot. To that end, it was striking that Republican leaders — including former Rep. Lee Zeldin and New York GOP Chair Ed Cox — celebrated Latimer’s victory over Bowman last week. Latimer rebuffed the effort to cast him as a Republican in a Democrat’s clothes. He staunchly favors LGBTQ+ and abortion rights and backed sweeping gun law changes at the state and local levels — a record spanning his career as a state lawmaker and the Westchester County executive. But Latimer also believes the district — which includes wealthy communities along the Long Island Sound and urban areas where Latino and Black residents are the majority — is not a hotbed of far-left activism. “Westchester is a Democratic area,” he said. “But it’s not a radical Democratic area. This is not Astoria, not parts of Brooklyn.” — Nick Reisman HAPPY WEDNESDAY: Got news? Send it our way: Jeff Coltin, Emily Ngo and Nick Reisman.
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