Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images
Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), center, and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) stand alongside George Washington University students during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, May 8, 2024.
ST. LOUIS – Congresswoman Cori Bush is facing a primary challenge in Missouri’s First Congressional District from St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell—and from the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC United Democracy Project.
UDP is coming after Bush for her outspokenness against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, but as in other races it has targeted, the PAC is trying to pull voters away from her without ever saying the words “Israel” or “Palestine.” Instead, their advertising against Bush centers around her record on infrastructure legislation, in a manner that lacks context.
The election, which will be held on August 6, comes months after Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a member of the left-wing Squad alongside Bush, was defeated by George Latimer in New York. Latimer was backed by UDP, which spent millions on his campaign.
Bowman’s defeat (rightly) raised alarm bells among other progressives who have been outspoken against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. But it’s essential to keep in mind that Bowman’s loss had much to do with the particular characteristics of his district.
Though both Bowman and Bush have become targets of political spending by the pro-Israel action group, they represent vastly different places, both politically and demographically. Bowman’s district, NY-16, is wealthier than Bush’s, even more so after redistricting following the 2020 census, when it took in significant portions of Westchester County. Bowman only took 57 percent of the primary vote in a four-way race in 2022.
Nearly all of MO-01 is urban. The majority of Bush’s constituents are nonwhite, with Black and white residents each making up roughly 45 percent of the population. Meanwhile, almost 18 percent of the district lives below the poverty line. That number rises to 28 percent among children, twice as many as the level in Bowman’s district. The issues that animated Bowman’s constituents won’t necessarily be the same in Missouri.
United Democracy Project is tailoring its messaging accordingly. And Bush is fighting back with the resources she has against Bell, in particular targeting his record as a prosecutor and the promises he made to the community in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson.
It looks like Bell’s message is resonating with voters. According to a poll released Monday of 400 likely Democratic voters conducted by Democratic Majority for Israel, which supports Bell in the race, 48 percent support Bell, 42 percent support Bush, and 8 percent remain undecided. A July poll from a super PAC tied to Bell showed him winning more handily, while a late-June poll, also from DMFI, showed a tied race. It’s important to note that none of these polls is conducted by perfectly neutral parties.
A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF MONEY has been funneled into the election in MO-01. With about a week until the election, it’s already the fifth-most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with $15 million spent, according to AdImpact Politics. Bowman’s primary, at $25.4 million, is the single most expensive of all time.
In total, $395 million has been spent on ads for House races this cycle. And United Democracy Project makes up a whopping 7.8 percent of that number, the largest share of any single advertiser.
As far as money goes, Bush is unquestionably the underdog in the race. The $2.1 million in ads spent for her campaign is up against $12.2 million spent to attack her or support Bell. UDP is responsible for more than $7 million of that total.
“St. Louis is not for sale,” Bush said in her keynote speech at the Netroots Nation conference, a gathering for progressive activists, on July 11.
Voters in St. Louis have been seeing these ads. Dan, a 32-year-old who lives in South City St. Louis, described his frustration at seeing the two candidates go head-to-head on their records—whether it be on abortion, policing, or Israel—rather than discussing future policies.
“At the end of the day, one of them is gonna win our district. I don’t care who the best Democrat is, I care who’s gonna be doing the best for our communities,” he said.
With about a week until the election, it’s already the fifth-most expensive House primary in U.S. history.
According to the biography on her campaign website, Bush has led a life not dissimilar to many of those in her district. She “has experienced being unhoused and evicted, and she is a survivor of police, sexual, and domestic violence.” Much of her work in Congress thus far has centered on these issues, including her 2021 sit-in on the Capitol steps to push for an extension of the federal eviction moratorium.
The district traces along the Mississippi, encompassing the city of St. Louis and spreading out to the west and north of it. It includes Ferguson, the city where Bush got her start as a racial justice organizer protesting the 2014 murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. by a white police officer. Bell became a city councilmember in Ferguson after the protests, eventually defeating a nearly 30-year incumbent to become county prosecutor.
Notably, Brown’s family appeared in an ad for Bush, arguing that Bell didn’t fulfill his promises to the family, by declining to bring charges as the prosecutor of Brown’s killer, officer Darren Wilson. Pro-Bush advocates have highlighted a recent report from a St. Louis–based coalition called the Prosecutor Organizing Table, citing statistics that the jail population in St. Louis County is the same size under Bell as it was before he reached office, and that Black women were incarcerated at much higher rates. “We have seen the office fail to implement meaningful change on a number of important fronts,” the report concluded.
ONE PRO-BELL SEGMENT, paid for by (you guessed it) the United Democracy Project, takes aim at Bush’s voting record on infrastructure.
In 2021, Bush voted against President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. Bell and his advertisements portray this as Bush being disloyal to the party and voting against the interests of her constituents. But this reasoning covers up the strategy beneath Bush’s withheld vote.
Bush, along with other progressives, had her sights set on passing the Build Back Better Act—a landmark legislative push that, if passed, would have given families a $3,600 annual Child Tax Credit, guaranteed free pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds, increased housing investments, funded child care and elder care, expanded Medicare and Medicaid, and added green-energy jobs to the economy, among many other proposals. It was an agenda that would help low-income families and workers in Bush’s district.
There was an attempt at the time to split the infrastructure package from Build Back Better. Progressives wanted those two bills fused together, fearing that moderates would pass the infrastructure bill and abandon the Build Back Better elements. (Ultimately, much of it was abandoned; the Inflation Reduction Act retained only the green-energy investments, prescription drug price negotiation, and an extension of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies.)
“St. Louis deserves the president’s entire agenda,” Bush said at the time. “So that means both the bipartisan infrastructure package and the Build Back Better Act. We cannot push away one part of President Biden’s agenda because it’s difficult or because a couple of people don’t want it. Our communities need it. And when I signed up to Congress and when I told the people I wanted to go and fight for St. Louis—that’s what I meant.”
Bush used her vote to protest the splitting off of the Build Back Better Act alongside the main infrastructure bill. The votes were there to pass the infrastructure package, and Bush’s opposition didn’t change that. But her refusal to vote for the infrastructure bill was not disloyalty to her party—it was an expression of loyalty to her district.
Some in St. Louis have been disappointed by the increasingly high-pressure campaign. Paula, 67, told me that she’s seen many ads from both the Bush and Bell campaigns, but was put off by Bush’s.
“[Bell’s] are much more professional. Hers seem to be attack ads. And that doesn’t make me want to vote for her in any way, shape, or form,” she said.
“I don’t know much about her,” Paula admitted. But, about Bush’s ads, she said: “I don’t want to be part of that. And he seems to have policy in his ads and, like, more substance.”
But at the end of the day, the attack ads might not be what wins or loses the election. Voters in St. Louis seemed more concerned about who they felt they knew better.
One man, sitting with his kids beside a public basketball court, told me that Bush is a friend of a family friend. A young woman said she received a campaign phone call, and that Bush sounded like a good person. Israel wasn’t on her mind when she voted, she said.
And for one woman, Bush appeals because she feels like someone that she could know. She sees Bush as an active part of the community far more than Bell.
“She mingles, she talks, she gets her face out there,” the 42-year-old told me. As for how ads and politicians portray Bush: “The characteristics and the verbiage surrounding what she stands for, it’s just not the same.”
