Former US Rep. Jamaal Bowman endorsed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani within the race for mayor Wednesday – however critics bashed the candidate for embracing the controversial ex-“Squad” member.
Bowman was a two-term Democrat for the Bronx and Westchester County who was run out of workplace by voters after pleading responsible to falsely pulling a hearth alarm within the Capitol to quickly delay a vote to avert a authorities shutdown.
However Mamdani welcomed Bowman’s endorsement regardless of the political baggage, contemplating him a kindred soul on affordability points for the working class and needy. Mamdani took purpose at former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the frontrunner within the crowded Democratic Occasion major for mayor, with polls displaying the democratic socialist trailing at No. 2.
“With Bowman’s help we not only reach more voters in the Bronx, but expose Cuomo’s record of failure and corruption,” Mamdani mentioned in a press release.
Bowman — who represented the sixteenth Congressional district earlier than he was changed by reasonable Democrat George Latimer — had been aligned with the left-wing “Squad” that features Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, Queens) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
He referred to as Mamdani the candidate of the working folks and slammed Cuomo as a company Democrat.
“Andrew Cuomo is taking money from the same billionaires who support Donald Trump,” mentioned Bowman, a former Bronx educator earlier than operating for public workplace. “We got people like Donald Trump because of people like Andrew Cuomo.”
Though Bowman was trounced by Latimer in a Democratic major in 2024, the ex-“Squad” member handily carried the Bronx portion of the sixteenth district, together with heavy black precincts within the huge Co-Op Metropolis housing complicated. The complicated was the setting for a press convention saying the endorsement.
Mamdani, who’s now a Queens assemblyman, referred to as Bowman’s endorsement “historic” and praised him as a “fighter for not only the Bronx but the entirety of New York City.”
However pro-Israel Jewish activists who declare Bowman is antisemitic mentioned the endorsement will discourage voters from supporting Mamdani.
“Antisemites of a feather flock together,” mentioned Brooklyn Assemblyman Kalman Yeger. “It says something about a candidate when every Jew hater who endorses chooses him.”
In a press release on X, former Brooklyn Councilman David Greenfield mentioned Mamdani “discovered probably the most anti-Israel FORMER elected official in America, who conveniently blamed the Jews for dropping his race, and obtained him to endorse Zohran for Mayor of NYC.
“Very on brand for Zohran,” he mentioned.
Bowman’s Home tenure was transient however rife with controversy.
He was censured by the Republican-led Home in December 2023 after the hearth alarm fiasco in a Capitol Hill workplace constructing Sept. 30.
He later pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor rely of elevating a false fireplace alarm and agreed to pay a $1,000 superb and wrote an apology letter to the chief of the US Capitol Police.
Mamdani’s marketing campaign declined to touch upon Bowman’s felony conviction.
Jewish voters turned on Bowman over his bashing of Israel, which insiders mentioned fueled his landslide major defeat.
Bowman referred to as Israel an “apartheid state” and claimed at a rally that the rapes and little one murders reported throughout Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror assault on the Jewish state had been a “lie” — remarks he later walked again.
It was additionally revealed that he had as soon as peddled conspiracy theories associated to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror assaults on his private weblog.
However the ex-congressman is staying politically lively.
Earlier this 12 months, he created a “Built to Win” Tremendous PAC aimed toward serving to elect fellow lefty candidates and defeat pro-Israel candidates.
A Marist Institute Faculty Institute for Public Opinion launched Wednesday confirmed Cuomo with assist from 37% of Democrats to 18% for Mamdani.
Mamdani led amongst voters beneath the age of 45, however Cuomo was the favourite of older voters and black and Latinos, the ballot confirmed.
