A group of a few young, upstart Democrats made a lot of headlines over the last couple years in the House with their ultra-progressive viewpoints on life in general, how they tried to govern and how and what they spoke about.
Now, the future of that group, known as “The Squad,” could be in doubt after a few of its members have lost their primary elections.
Both New York Representative Jamaal Bowman and Missouri Representative Cori Bush lost their re-election bids to more moderate Democrats. They didn’t even make it out of the primary for their districts to face off against a Republican challenger come November.
Other members of “The Squad” who did win their primaries did so by much smaller margins than would be expected of incumbent members of Congress — and especially for people who, just a few years ago, won big margins of victory at the polls.
One of the calling cards of Squad members has been fighting against the “status quo.” In recent times, that has meant not blindly backing Israel and even calling out some Israeli officials for how they are carrying out their war with the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
That has led to some large pro-Israel groups backing the opponents of Squad members in the primary. In fact, both Bush and Bowman were taken down by challengers who received significant backing by the United Democracy Project, which is associated with AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Other members of the Squad such as Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar barely eked out their primary wins, but they could face big challenges in the General Election because of their sharp criticisms of Israel.
Omar was one of the founding members of the Squad back in 2018, along with New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley.
The losses that the two Squad members suffered shows how divided some Democrats are about Israel. They also should have a major impact on how effective The Squad could be in the next Congress, since — at best — there will only be six members now.
As Thomas Gift, a founding director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College of London, explained:
“The Squad’s power on Capitol Hill isn’t in a free fall, but there’s no doubt that its clout is waning. Moderate Democrats are increasingly willing to distance themselves from far-left voices because they know that their brand of ultra-progressive politics isn’t popular with large swathes of the electorate.”
At one point early on in the Bide administration, “The Squad was a force to be reckoned with,” according to University of British Columbia in Canada political science professor Paul Quirk.
But, he added:
“That influence was bound to be short-lived. A handful of Congress members cannot get together, choose a name, make itself the leading voice of a much broader political tendency and sustain the role for very long.
“There is, after all, a Congressional Progressive Caucus, with 10 times The Squad’s membership.”
