NY-16: Progressive Challenge to Dem Establishment Splits Climate Groups

"Both challenger Jamaal Bowman and 16-term incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel embrace the Green New Deal, asking voters to decide what it really means to be pro-environment."

"In New York's 16th Congressional District, Jamaal Bowman's Democratic primary challenge to 16-term Rep. Eliot Engel bears a striking resemblance to the 2018 race next door in Queens between a then-unknown bartender named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley.

Bowman, 44, is a progressive political newcomer and former public middle school principal with activist roots, while Engel, 73, is a prominent establishment Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is a senior member of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

The 16th district comprises the northern Bronx and the southern half of affluent Westchester County. It is majority Black and Hispanic (57 percent) and female (54 percent), based on census data, and is the second most economically unequal district in New York State, based on its score on the 2018 Gini Index, which measures income inequality."

Ilana Cohen reports for InsideClimate News June 16, 2020.

Source: InsideClimate News, 06/17/2020