Two Top NY Dem Committee Chairs in Danger of Losing Primaries

Maloney Engel Pelosi AP
AP
Tony Lee

Two of House Speaker Nancy Speaker’s (D-CA) top committee chairs—House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY) and House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)—are in danger of being ousted after Tuesday’s balloting in New York’s Congressional primaries.

With 82 percent reporting in the state’s 16th Congressional District, progressive challenger Jamaal Bowman had 20,322 votes (60.5%) to Engel’s 12,066 (35.9%).

With 85 percent reporting in New York’s 12th Congressional District, Maloney had 14,106 votes (41.5%) to challenger Suraj Patel’s 13,572 (39.9). Maloney easily defeated Patel, a less-than-perfect candidate, in the 2018 election cycle.

Engel has been in Congress since 1989. Maloney has been a Congresswoman since 1993.

Both races will likely not be called until next week, when New York counts absentee ballots that have been postmarked by June 23.

Patel, claiming a “mandate for change,” said on Tuesday evening that his campaign is confident in his path to victory because they ran the “best absentee ballot field program in this race.”

Bowman optimistically addressed his supporters and said, if the results hold, he is “fired up” to go to Congress and “cause trouble” while holding President Donald Trump accountable.

“Trump is more afraid of a Black man with power more than anything else,” Bowman said. “So if the results continue to bear out… and we get to Congress, it will be our job to hold Donald Trump accountable and to hold every elected official accountable that continues to be beholden to corporate interests, that continues to be beholden to the wealthy, and that is not fighting for the poor and that is not fighting for the working class in this country.”

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