Missouri Rep. Cori Bush faces tight primary challenge from progressive with pro-Israel backing

(JTA) — In many ways, Tuesday’s primary in Missouri’s First District resembles the June primary in New York’s Westchester County that saw Rep. Jamaal Bowman lose his seat.

In both races, a more centrist Democrat is challenging a member of the hardline left-wing “Squad” and outspoken critic of Israel. In both races, pro-Israel groups have spent millions to defeat the incumbent. And in both races, the progressive incumbent has accused the pro-Israel activists of racism.

The difference in Missouri: Both candidates are prominent African-American civil rights activists. Rep. Cori Bush, who is running for reelection, rose to prominence leading protests in Ferguson after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown. Her challenger Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor, won that office in 2018 by ousting an incumbent who failed to prosecute the policeman who killed Brown.

Now, Bell is seeking to oust Bush, arguing that she is more focused on raising her own profile than on delivering results for constituents in the St. Louis-area district.

“You can’t just cheer from the bleachers or grandstand just for yourself,” Bell says in his ads. “You’ve got to be a team player.”

Few of Bell’s campaign materials reference Israel, but much of the funding behind him comes from groups that are affiliated with, or ideologically close to, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. Political action committees aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs have spent at least $9 million in the race. Another pro-Israel PAC, Democratic Majority for Israel, has spent close to $500,000. Pro-Israel groups spent $14 million backing Bowman’s opponent, George Latimer.

By contrast, the main outside group backing Bush, Justice Democrats, has spent just over $2 million, Axios reported. Bell is also outspending Bush, $3 million to $1.5 million.

And unlike Bowman’s race, in which he trailed by large margins in polls for months, this one is close, with pro-Israel money making an apparent difference. Polls showed Bell behind Bush before ads paid for by pro-Israel groups started flooding Missouri’s 1st District; he soon pulled up even and is now ahead.

Accusations against AIPAC

Bush and her supporters, like Bowman’s in New York, charge that the pro-Israel effort to defeat her is racist, claiming that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee targets progressive officials of color.

“We all know how you feel about Black and brown progressives,” Bowman tweeted in March, adding that AIPAC-aligned groups were spending against his fellow members of the Squad, all of whom are women of color.

The Intercept, a left-wing outlet that has focused on AIPAC’s role in political fundraising, accused the United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-aligned super PAC, of distorting a photo of Bush in one of its ads to change her skin color and the shape of her forehead.

“The people of St. Louis deserve better than to see their first Black Congresswoman racistly distorted into a caricature,” Bush told The Intercept. “I shouldn’t have to ask my opponent to condemn his biggest funders for putting out an ad like this and to apologize to the people of this district.”

The pro-Israel groups deny targeting Black and brown officials, noting that they endorse many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. United Democracy Project also denied distorting the photo. Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for UDP, called the allegation “an attempt by Cori Bush and her allies to distract from the fact that she is one of the least effective members of Congress, has missed tons of votes, hasn’t passed a single bill, and has opposed President Biden on key issues.”

Bell does differ from Bush on Israel. Bush was one of two members of Congress to vote against a measure to deny entry to the United States to the Hamas terrorists who perpetrated the Oct. 7 massacre that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza. She has declined to call Hamas a terror group, saying that racial justice protesters in Ferguson were also called terrorists (though her campaign later walked that back). She endorses the movement to boycott Israel.

Bell’s campaign website, by contrast, says, “Israel has the right to defend itself and go after those who perpetrated those attacks. In Congress, I’ll fight to make sure the United States remains Israel’s strongest ally.”

The bulk of the St. Louis area’s 60,000 Jews live in the district, and local Jewish leaders have seized on the difference in Israel policy. “For nearly four years, Cori Bush has not been shy about her desire to isolate, demonize, and discredit Israel,” a roster of Jewish clergy from across the denominational spectrum wrote last month in an open letter. “She does not speak for us, nor does her voting record in Congress represent us.”

But Bell hasn’t focused his campaign on Israel. Instead, both he and Bush have questioned the other’s bona fides as a warrior for racial justice in a district that is half African-American. In the final days of the race, Bush has run an ad featuring Michael Brown Sr., accusing Bell of exploiting his son’s death — noting that Bell did not reopen the case against the policeman who killed him.

And Bell told Axios he’s not thrilled with the loads of money in the race. “The money that’s coming into campaigns is just insane and I think it takes away from the issues that actually matter,” he said.

Bell and UDP focus on Bell’s votes against President Joe Biden’s 2021 infrastructure bill, a vote they say would have cost St. Louis thousands of jobs. (The bill passed; Bush and other Squad members voted against the bill because they said it did too little to bolster social services.)

“The pursuit of justice, that’s what’s always driven Wesley Bell,” says a UDP ad, against photos of Bell at civil rights rallies.

The two candidates were once close, which has become a feature in the race: Bush released a 2023 phone call in which Bell promised not to challenge her. Bell countered by noting that Bush pledged to endorse Bell as prosecutor on the call.

Bush has solicited the endorsement of a number of progressive Jews. Michael Berg, the former political director of Sierra Club Missouri, headlined an op-ed in The Nation, “I’m a St. Louis Jew. Here’s Why I’m Backing Cori Bush.”

He noted that AIPAC’s PACs solicit funds from pro-Israel Republicans.

“If we want to tackle this existential threat, we cannot elect a moderate with close ties to extremist Republicans,” Berg wrote, referring to climate change. “We must send Cori Bush back to Congress to keep fighting for us, for all of us.

Bush has at times appeared overeager to tout her Jewish credentials. Last month she told followers at a Jews for Cori fundraiser that she rushed to assist a woman who collapsed at an event. The woman, Bush said, was Jewish and AIPAC-affiliated.

“I did what nurses do, take care of the person that was in need,” she said.

But the woman, named Debbie Kitchen, who was a supporter of Bell, was not Jewish and had nothing to do with AIPAC. In fact, the group with which she is affiliated, Indivisible, has criticized AIPAC’ s role in Democratic primaries.

“It just blew my mind,” Kitchen told St. Louis Magazine. “Then to find out that she raised $30,000 that night — I was livid.”