The Protests Are Already Changing Elections

Jamaal Bowman wasn’t supposed to win.

The 44-year-old black progressive candidate, a former middle-school principal, challenged a New York representative who’s been in Congress since before the fall of the Berlin Wall and who had the backing of some of the most powerful players in the Democratic Party. But if the initial results in his primary yesterday hold, he could soon be a presumptive congressman. Although officials haven’t yet counted each absentee ballot, election analysts have begun calling the race for Bowman, given his significant advantage so far over the incumbent, Eliot Engel.

Bowman’s lefty insurgency should sound familiar, two years after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s triumph over the local Democratic Party boss Joe Crowley in 2018. But his likely win is