Sam Raskin on the key Democratic primaries in New York

Slingshot Senior Vice President Sam Raskin spoke to City & State’s Austin Jefferson about the upcoming primary election between Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer and what it means more broadly for progressive incumbents across the state.

“The political mood does not necessarily translate into unseating incumbents in a primary, and the turnout is just too low,” said political consultant Sam Raskin. He added that a wave of seats shifting to the center of the Party was unlikely this year, especially as galvanizing issues such as the war in Gaza and public safety continue to shift ahead of the primary election date. But progressive incumbents don’t have a cakewalk to stay in office either. Links to some divisive policies take work to smooth out with a constituency.

“There is obviously a pressure for some of these left-wing incumbents to fold on some of these issues, and what we've seen is that they've had to sort of walk that tightrope,” Raskin said.

The outcome he said was that in many cases, progressives figure out a way to marry their policy stances to their district in a way that doesn’t put them in peril electorally simply for being progressive.

“I think some of these lawmakers have done a very good job of doing the constituent services, of being palatable to voters across their district,” Raskin said.

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