- Yvette Clarke, a longtime congresswoman from Brooklyn’s 9th congressional district defeated multiple Democratic primary challengers this year.
- She won her re-match against organizer Adem Bunkeddeko, who won 47% of the vote against her in 2018, and a challenge from Brooklyn councilman Chaim Deutsch.
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The stakes:
Yvette Clarke, a longtime congresswoman from Brooklyn, defeated multiple Democratic primary challengers this year, both from the left and the right.
Clarke’s district, located in Central Brooklyn, includes part of the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Brownsville, Midwood, and Sheepshead Bay. The district is half African-American and also includes a substantial Orthodox Jewish community.
In the 2018 Democratic primary, Clarke narrowly won re-election with 53% of the vote against progressive primary challenger Adem Bunkeddeko, a community organizer and son of Ugandan refugees.
Bunkeddeko ran for the Democratic nomination again this year in his second attempt to defeat Clarke, styling himself as a reformer and an “anti-machine progressive.”
Clarke, who has served in the House since 2006, also faced challenges from Isiah James, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and New York City Councilman Chaim Deutsch, who is running to her right as more moderate Democrat and looking to earn votes in the district’s Orthodox community.
“I believe we need more moderate and centrist members of Congress, to balance out the far-left agenda,” Deutsch told Jewish Insider. “Now more than ever, it’s critical that NY-9 has a leader who is interested in building bridges, not tearing them down in pursuit of a progressive agenda.”
As City & State New York recently reported, Clarke has a very progressive voting record and has supported both Medicare for All and the Green New Deal resolution on climate change championed by Ocasio-Cortez.
The outlet also reported that much of the clash between the primary candidates has been over their respective campaign donations.
City & State said Clarke’s primary opponents including Bunkeddeko have attacked her record of accepting donations from large corporations and the real estate industry. Clarke, however, has defended accepting campaign money from a variety of different sources, “saying I do not believe in litmus test pledges against receiving money from certain entities.”
In turn, both James and Clarke’s campaign have criticized Bunkeddeko for accepting campaign donations from big donors who have given to Republicans and consultants who work with the Police Benevolent Association, a major law enforcement union many Democrats have criticized and that has endorsed Deutsch in the primary.
In a lengthy Twitter thread, Bunkeddeko accused his opponents of glossing over his lived experience as a Black man and said, “I have not, nor will I ever, accept money from the PBA, the [Seargant’s Benevolent Association], or from the defense contractors that put weapons of war into the hands of police officers.”