Bowman chides Latimer over George Floyd, COVID-19 comments in NY primary fight

Westchester County Executive George Latimer is facing criticism after saying Rep. Jamaal Bowman won his 2020 congressional primary in part due to the killing of George Floyd and a pandemic-era surge in mail-in ballots.

Latimer made the comments during a May 9 radio interview on 77WABC’s Cats & Cosby show, co-hosted by John Catsimatidis, a former Republican mayoral candidate and prolific GOP donor. Bowman’s 2020 primary victory made him the first Black person to represent the district in Washington. Latimer, a pro-Israel Democrat, is mounting a serious primary challenge against Bowman this year, which is centered around divisions over Israel’s actions in Gaza and the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

Latimer was responding to a question from state GOP Chair Ed Cox on how Bowman won the 2020 Democratic primary in the liberal 16th Congressional District when he challenged centrist Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, who had held his seat for more than 30 years.

“One of the things you may recall that Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo did was authorize an absentee ballot to be sent to every single voter. And when you do that, people who don't normally vote, wind up voting in this primary,” Latimer said. “So you have the abnormally high vote totals, that, you know, probably skewed results.”

Latimer went on to say that Black voters may have been galvanized by outrage over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020.

“You also have, as you recall the death of George Floyd on the night of Memorial Day evening that came one month before the election," Latimer said. "And that generated a tremendous surge in the Black community's concerns, anger, whatever, and the incumbent —”

“Are you allowed to say Black?” Catsimatidis said.

“I don't know, I grew up in a Black neighborhood. So — ” Latimer said, before Catsimatidis continued speaking.

The Bowman campaign and its supporters are saying Latimer’s comments prove he’s out of touch with Black voters' concerns.

“When more people vote, our democracy is stronger,” Bowman said in a statement. “George Latimer sounds less like a Democrat and more like the MAGA extremists trying to take away the rights of Black and brown voters.”

Latimer's campaign fired back on Saturday, saying that the candidate's record should speak for itself.

"We're used to our opponents' dishonest efforts to take things out of context to create deeper divisions in the district and undermine President [Joe] Biden and other Democrats, so we're not surprised by this kind of inflammatory and misleading rhetoric,” Yuridia Peña, a spokesperson for the Latimer campaign, said in a statement. “But let's be clear, Jamaal Bowman is the only candidate in this race who has voted with MAGA extremists against key Democratic priorities, over and over.”

Bowman and other progressives voted against the House version of a potential TikTok ban, along with Trump acolytes like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida).

As Biden faces voter dissatisfaction over the United States' response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the primary has come to be seen as a litmus test for Democratic sentiment toward the Israel-Hamas war ahead of November's elections.

Bowman has been deeply critical of Israel's offensive, and has faced blowback for calling Israel’s actions genocide. Latimer, who is backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has significantly outraised Bowman and appears to be mobilizing the district's Jewish voters.

Bowman accused Latimer of painting him as “the angry Black man” during a debate between both candidates on News 12 this week.