Are Members of ‘The Squad’ in Trouble for 2024?

There are a lot of really terrible members of the House, most of them being members of the Democratic Party. The Republican Party has Ken Buck (for a few more months), but Democrats have Pramila Jayapal, Daniel Goldman, and Nancy Pelosi. 

Then there’s “the squad,” which is a bit of a moving target, but seems to include anyone with “Democratic Socialists of America” and “Justice Democrats” connections. That includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and more recently, Jamaal Bowman. 

Are at least three of those congressional members in trouble, though? Largely lost in the 2022 election cycle is the fact that Ilhan Omar only won her primary by 2,400 votes. She faced a stiff challenger, Democrat Don Samuels, and he’s back in the game for 2024. 

Given the fact that Omar has been shouting her allegiance to Somalia lately in quasi-genocidal language, I’d say she thinks she’s in trouble. If she’s having to pander that hard to the Somali contingent in her district, which holds sizable voting power, then Omar is not comfortable with her position going into her primary. She is, by far, the most vulnerable member of “the squad.” 

She’s not the only one, though, at least theoretically. Recent news of large fundraising hauls for the Democrat primary opponents of Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush are raising eyebrows. 

Squad members Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., have both so far been out-raised by their more moderate Democrat challengers, as primary threats mount. 
Bush, a defund the police advocate under Justice Department investigation for shelling out tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash to a security firm, was just narrowly outraised by her primary challenger, attorney Wesley Bell. 

As RedState reported, Bush is also under criminal investigation for misuse of funds (campaign and/or federal) regarding her paying her unlicensed now-husband tens of thousands of dollars for “security services.” For his part, Bowman recently pleaded guilty to criminal charges involving his pulling of a fire alarm in the Capitol Building in an apparent attempt to stall a vote on a bill, though he denies that was the reason. 

The question is whether their districts will care. Both of them are deep blue, filled with radical far-left voters who would need to decide they care about ethics and policy more than the “show” Bush and Bowman provide. Still, it’s interesting that both are lagging in fundraising, which could translate at the ballot box. 

Of course, none of these people will be defeated by Republicans in a general election, but seeing some of the most radical, literal socialist members of the Democratic Party go down in flames to more “moderate” candidates would send a message and a positive one.