In the wake of George Latimer’s hard-fought win over incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the impact of Jewish voters in his victory is becoming clear.
As state Board of Elections results rolled in the night of June 25, Westchester County Executive George Latimer was named the winner before 10 p.m. Latimer won 44,371 votes (58.11%) and the incumbent Jamaal Bowman tallied 31,555 votes (41.32%).
The Israel-Hamas war became one of the most important lightning-rod issues that divided the Democratic candidates — and local efforts to turn out Jewish voters in Westchester County were highly successful.
“We believe history was made,” said Maury Litwack, founder and CEO of the nonpartisan organization Teach Coalition, which has branches in New York and five other states. Teach Coalition is a project under the Orthodox Union, one of the country’s largest orthodox organizations.
Teach Coalition ran a campaign called Westchester Unites, based in New Rochelle, to mobilize Jewish voters in the county — and leaders are now calling those efforts massively successful.
The campaign was a door-knocking and phone-calling effort aimed at improving civic engagement, according to Litwack.
He told the Bronx Times that the organization does not endorse specific candidates — rather, it works to “create surround sound” toward voter education and participation across the political spectrum.
“Our community is not a monolith,” Litwack said.
The efforts of Teach Coalition turned out 14,871 Jewish voters in Westchester County on primary day — nearly 58% of all eligible Jewish voters in the county. This total represents over 24% of all votes cast within NY-16, according to the organization.
Typically, the Jewish vote in Westchester mirrors or is just slightly above the rest of the county, Litwack said. But in the NY-16 election — where the Israel-Hamas war became a central and contentious split between Bowman and Latimer — it was a “perfect storm” that mobilized a Jewish community that was already feeling politically ignored, said Litwack.
Throughout the race, stark differences emerged in how each candidate viewed the war between Israel and Hamas. Bowman repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire and for the United States to stop sending weapons to Israel, whereas Latimer adopted a more centrist stance, supporting Israel and calling for hostages held by Hamas to be released before talks of a ceasefire.
With Latimer declared the winner, pundits locally and across the country said that Bowman’s criticism of Israel was among the main factors that cost him the race.
Meanwhile, Latimer has faced criticism from progressives who say that the Israeli political lobbying group AIPAC “bought” his victory with nearly $15 million in campaign spending.
With the NY-16 contest the talk of the nation for months, the Westchester Unites campaign made efforts to ensure that people could even participate in the Democratic primary election: the campaign encouraged voters registered as independent or Republicans to switch to the Democratic party before Feb. 14, the deadline to change party affiliation.
Many people are not aware that they must be registered within a party in order to vote in that party’s primary, said Litwack — and often they show up to vote in a contest that interests them and are turned away.
In addition to strong primary day turnout among Jewish voters, the Westchester Unites campaign also yielded strong early voting results, amid low overall turnout within the nine-day window. Westchester Unites brought in 10,286 early votes by mail and in person — accounting for 35% of all early votes in the county. Statewide, only about 103,000 voters cast early ballots.
Teach Coalition plans to carry the momentum among Jewish voters from the NY-16 race into future elections.
Their turnout effort was a “model for future elections” in New York, said Litwack.
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
