George Latimer has been on a Westchester ballot nearly every other year since 1987. He has served on the Rye City Council, chaired the county Board of Legislators, and served in the Assembly, the State Senate, and seven years as county executive. In 2024 he ousted Rep. Jamaal Bowman in what was then the most expensive House primary on record, according to AdImpact figures, and in January 2025 he took the 16th District seat in Congress.
So who is George Latimer, what has he passed in Washington, and why do progressives still bring up how he won? The record runs through a 2019 sales tax increase, a state audit of the deficits he inherited, one House bill that passed unanimously, and a 2026 race against Republican Joseph Cinquemani.
Quick Facts
- Party
- Democratic
- Hometown
- Rye, N.Y. (born in Mount Vernon)
- Date of Birth
- Nov. 22, 1953
- Current Position
- U.S. House of Representatives, New York's 16th District
- Background
- Former Westchester County Executive, state senator, and Assembly member; former hotel and marketing executive
- In Office Since
- 2025 (Congress); elected official since 1988
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
Latimer was born in Mount Vernon to Stanley and Loretta Latimer and attended the city’s public schools, according to his State Senate biography. The county archives describe him as a third-generation Westchester native. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and a master’s in public administration from New York University’s Wagner School, according to Vote Smart.
He lives in Rye with his wife, Robin, and they have one daughter, Meagan, according to Vote Smart. Before politics became a full-time job, he spent about 20 years as a sales and marketing executive for subsidiaries of Nestlé and ITT, according to his Senate biography. That work included hotel and conference marketing for clients such as AT&T and IBM.
FOUR DECADES IN WESTCHESTER OFFICE
Latimer won a seat on the Rye City Council in 1987 and moved to the county Board of Legislators in 1992, according to Vote Smart. He served as minority leader and then as the board’s first Democratic chairman, from 1998 to 2001. His Senate biography credits that board with cutting county property taxes three years in a row during his time as chairman.
He won an Assembly seat in 2004 and moved to the State Senate in 2012. In 2017 he beat Ken Jenkins, a county legislator and former board chairman, in a Democratic primary for county executive, 23,673 to 13,803 in unofficial returns, according to Patch. He then unseated two-term Republican Rob Astorino and later left the post for Congress, handing it to Jenkins.
ELECTION RESULTS
Latimer has won 18 general elections across local and state offices, according to Scarsdale10583. In the Assembly he beat Republican Rob Biagi 31,886 to 12,816 in 2008 and Bill Reed 21,759 to 10,283 in 2010, according to Ballotpedia. His Senate races were closer: 64,236 to 54,574 over Bob Cohen in 2012 and 73,116 to 58,164 over Julie Killian in 2016.
His 2014 Senate race was the tightest. Unofficial returns gave him about 53 percent against Republican Joe Dillon, a former Treasury Department chief of staff, according to the Rye Record. For county executive he beat Astorino with about 57 percent of 206,230 votes in 2017. He then beat Republican Christine Sculti 94,833 to 58,069 in 2021, according to The Examiner.
In the June 2024 congressional primary, Latimer beat Bowman 45,909 to 32,440, or 58.6 percent to 41.4 percent, out of 78,387 votes cast, according to Ballotpedia. That November he beat Republican Miriam Levitt Flisser, a former Scarsdale mayor, 217,668 to 86,408. That margin, 131,260 votes, was the widest of his career. No one filed to challenge him in the 2026 Democratic primary.
2024 general election vote share, selected New York House Democrats and Republicans
LatimerDemocratic peersRepublican peer
Winner’s share of all votes cast in the November 2024 general election. Sources: New York City Board of Elections certified results (NY-15) and certified results compiled by Ballotpedia (other districts).
THE DISTRICT AND THE PARTY MATH
The 16th District covers southern and central Westchester and a slice of the northern Bronx. About 91 percent of its active voters live in Westchester. State Board of Elections enrollment figures from February 2025 showed 266,749 active Democrats, 78,138 Republicans, and 118,561 voters with no party, out of 480,819. The Cook Political Report rates the seat Solid Democratic with a partisan lean of D+18.
That lean leaves almost no general election risk, so the real contest is the Democratic primary. In Washington the math runs the other way. Latimer serves in the minority of a Republican-controlled House, where his bills need Republican votes to move. He belongs to the centrist New Democrat Coalition, according to his House website.
Latimer, then county executive, speaking at the 2023 opening of a commuter parking lot at the Croton Falls Metro-North station. (Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
Latimer sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Small Business Committee, according to his House website. On Small Business he serves on the Contracting and Infrastructure subcommittee and the Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital Access subcommittee, according to Ballotpedia. He holds no leadership post or ranking member role.
He also belongs to the Congressional Labor Caucus, the Reproductive Freedom Caucus, the Equality Caucus, and the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. In the State Senate he served on committees including Banks, Consumer Protection, Education, Environmental Conservation, Insurance, and Local Government. The Foreign Affairs seat matters to his base, since Israel policy defined his 2024 primary.
WHAT HE HAS ACTUALLY PASSED
No Latimer bill had become law as of PagPol’s review. His furthest advance is H.R. 789, the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act, which he introduced in January 2025 with Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri. The bill would require agencies to tell small businesses why a contract solicitation was canceled. It passed the House on June 3, 2025, without opposition, according to his office’s release, and now sits in a Senate committee.
His other bills remain at the introduction stage. H.R. 6531, the Bridges Not Bumpers Act, would create a federal working group on trucks striking low bridges, which he called “a real problem in the New York metropolitan area.” He wrote it with Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, and the Association of American Railroads and the American Trucking Associations back it, according to FreightWaves. It went to a highways subcommittee in December 2025.
He introduced H.R. 7217, the SBIR Administrative Funding Act, in January 2026 to extend administrative money for small business research grants. In April 2026 he filed H.R. 8220, the No Political Enemies Act, a House version of a Senate bill tied to Sen. Adam Schiff. It would bar politically motivated federal prosecutions, and it had no cosponsors, according to the bill tracker Lobby News.
The Westchester County Center in White Plains, a county-owned venue Latimer oversaw during his seven years as county executive. (Photo: Anthony22, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
HIS RECORD AND VOTES
As county executive, Latimer used an executive order on his first business day in 2018 to ban gun shows on county property, according to The Examiner. Astorino had vetoed a similar ban. In 2019 he won state approval to raise the county sales tax from 7.375 percent to 8.375 percent. That same year his budget raised the property tax levy 2 percent and passed the board 13 to 4 along party lines.
In Congress he votes with his party on the big partisan bills. He voted against the Laken Riley Act in January 2025, a bill that 46 Democrats supported, according to the House Clerk. He voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 218 to 214, and against the 2026 defense bill. He voted for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed 427 to 1. The AFL-CIO rates him at 92 percent.
WHY HE RAN AND WHAT HE BELIEVES
Latimer said he challenged Bowman because of how the incumbent “prioritized his work as a congressman,” citing Bowman’s vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill and his criticism of Israel, according to The Examiner. “I’m not standing in front of the White House arguing Israeli policy and calling it a genocide, which is absurd,” he told Jewish Insider in December 2023.
He describes his politics as practical, saying he would go to Washington “to do what I think are sensible things.” On primary night he called for civility: “We have to fight to make sure that we do not vilify each other, that we remember that we’re all Americans,” according to City & State.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Latimer raised about $6.68 million in the 2024 cycle, almost all of it from individual donors, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by LegiList. Bowman raised about $6.10 million. Outside groups dwarfed both campaigns. AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, spent $14.63 million in the district, according to a ProPublica tracker of FEC filings.
The crypto industry’s Fairshake PAC spent another $2.08 million, while the Working Families Party PAC spent $1.34 million backing Bowman. This cycle, in a safe seat, Latimer has raised far less. His campaign reported $513,967 in receipts and $100,662 in cash on hand through June 30, 2026, according to his FEC filings. PagPol could not find any FEC filings for Cinquemani.
Money in the 2024 NY-16 Democratic primary
Latimer campaign receiptsBowman campaign receiptsOutside spending
Campaign receipts for the 2024 cycle and independent expenditures by outside groups in New York’s 16th District, in millions of dollars. Sources: Federal Election Commission data compiled by LegiList and ProPublica’s FEC tracker.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
The 2024 primary left lasting criticism over money and race. On primary night Bowman said, “We should be outraged when a superPAC of dark money can spend $20 million to brainwash people,” according to WAMC. Even Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Latimer would have won with “a lot less” outside money, according to Ballotpedia News.
Latimer’s own words drew fire. Asked about Bowman, he told Punchbowl News, “Does he have an obvious ethnic benefit? Yes,” according to The New Republic. He had also likened parts of Bowman’s support to Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a large Arab American population. Bowman called that “this Islamophobic dogwhistle,” according to Common Dreams.
At the county level, Republicans attacked his 2019 tax increases. “Now is not the time for a tax increase for our residents,” said Legislator David Tubiolo of Yonkers, according to The Examiner. Latimer answered that he “inherited a budgetary situation which for many years did not raise revenue sufficient to run the county government.” Fitch and S&P cut the county’s bond rating from AAA to AA+ in November 2018, citing thin reserves, according to the Bond Buyer.
The Mount Vernon Municipal Building. Latimer was born in Mount Vernon and attended its public schools. (Photo: Jim.henderson, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)
CLAIMS VERSUS THE RECORD
Latimer presents himself as a bipartisan dealmaker. His two most active bills each have a Republican co-lead, and H.R. 789 passed the House without dissent. The record so far is still thin, though. After nearly two years, none of his bills has become law, and some of his 2026 bills, such as the No Political Enemies Act, have no cosponsors.
He also ran as a moderate alternative to a progressive incumbent. On the major party-line votes of the 119th Congress he has voted with Democratic leadership. His one break on the AFL-CIO’s 2025 scorecard was a vote for the crypto industry’s Clarity Act, according to the AFL-CIO scorecard. The crypto industry’s super PAC had spent $2.08 million in his 2024 race.
WESTCHESTER COUNTY AND STATE AUDITS
The state comptroller documented the county finances he inherited. An October 2018 county audit found $81.1 million in planned operating deficits from 2013 to 2017 and a 54 percent drop in cash. Latimer had requested the review. By fiscal years 2022 through 2024, the county earned the best possible fiscal stress score, 0.0, according to a county announcement.
Mount Vernon, his hometown, has drawn harsher findings. A January 2022 comptroller Mount Vernon audit found $16.4 million in electronic payments that bypassed the mayor’s countersignature. A December 2025 follow-up found the city had fully carried out only three of 11 earlier recommendations. The audits concern city officials, not Latimer.
LOOKING AHEAD
Latimer faces Republican Joseph Cinquemani, a New Rochelle attorney, on Nov. 3, 2026, with independent John Franklin Wilson IV also listed. “I intend to make a strong case in November for what we can accomplish over the next two years,” Latimer said in April. For a fellow Democrat’s House record, see PagPol’s profile of Paul Tonko. For more local coverage, visit PagPol’s Westchester County page or subscribe to the Westchester County newsletter.
