On Tuesday, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) was reportedly defeated in a primary, becoming the second member of the progressive Squad to be ousted this year. This defeat was the result of significant expenditure by pro-Israel groups.
Wesley Bell, the elected lead prosecutor in St. Louis County, Missouri, defeated Bush in the second most expensive House primary in history.
This victory was primarily due to the United Democracy Project’s expenditure of over $8 million, the super PAC arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The St. Louis-based district’s vulnerabilities were exacerbated by the wave of outside spending, despite the fact that the Israel-Hamas conflict had scarcely been a factor in the primary, as the United Democracy Project’s advertisements were focused on other topics.
Her voting record had alienated some local allies, and she had been the subject of a federal investigation this year regarding her campaign expenditures on security services.
Bell had campaigned as a progressive, criticizing Bush’s legislative record during her final two terms in Congress. He had singled out her vote against the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021 and also emphasized her absent votes.
Bush was endorsed by the Justice Democrats, a far-left group who supported the Squad and spent nearly $2 million on advertisements.
Bush and her allies had endeavored to portray Bell as an opportunist for giving up a planned Senate campaign to run against Bush.
They had also emphasized Bell’s historical connections to Republicans and his current overlap with GOP donors.
Despite their inability to rival the torrent of external funding, Bush had intended to mobilize a greater portion of her constituency in the Tuesday primary by outperforming Bell in terms of organization.
In 2020, she was elected in a wave of activist enthusiasm after unseating longtime incumbent Lacy Clay. She had planned to reactivate her supporters this year.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) was defeated in June, and Bush is the second member of the progressive Squad to lose their primary this year. Bowman also confronted a barrage of advertising by United Democracy Project, a group dedicated to challenging far-left Democrats over their opposition to Israel and embrace of anti-semitic rhetoric.
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