Did Cori Bush’s focus on AIPAC doom her Missouri Democratic primary bid?

JTA — At a speed that surprised local broadcasters and political analysts, the Associated Press determined that former US House representative Cori Bush had lost Missouri’s congressional Democratic primary to incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell just an hour after polls closed. In the end, Bell achieved a landslide victory, racking up 59.2% to Bush’s 36.9%.

That’s four times greater than the margin two years ago. In that first face-off, Bell topped Bush — then the district’s representative — by just 5.5 percentage points. The pro-Israel Bell’s overwhelming success Tuesday was especially striking due to negative shifts in public perceptions of AIPAC and the Jewish state, which also made for the biggest policy differences between two candidates with similar platforms.

Multiple factors determine the outcomes of political contests, which are always subject to geographic influences, personalities and various other complexities. But pro-Israel advocates who saw the Bell-Bush rematch as a referendum on AIPAC were relieved the lobby got passing marks on Tuesday.

That success indicates that views on Israel even in deep-blue communities are not monolithic or always decisive, and shows the limits of a campaign run almost exclusively on this topic. Demography and the economy ultimately mattered more in St. Louis than a conflict thousands of miles away, according to political analysts.

“The sentiment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and AIPAC money — while it was a central campaign theme of Cori Bush, it wasn’t the top-of-mind issue for voters in the district,” Braxton Payne, a St. Louis-based Democratic strategist unaffiliated with either campaign, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

During Bell’s first contest with Bush, before he had a proven track record on Capitol Hill, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent $9 million to support his campaign (compared to $3 million this year), according to Federal Election Commission records. The vast majority of the sum targeted Bush, who has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.

When she lost that race two years ago, Bush promised revenge, threatening to tear down AIPAC’s “kingdom.”

“I do believe that AIPAC and that money was Cori Bush’s whole campaign,” Payne said. “She focused on that and personal grievances versus talking about the issues. And Wesley Bell stuck to the cost of living and Cori Bush’s record in Congress.”

Bell reiterated the importance of domestic issues in a statement published following his victory, noting that “St. Louis is up against a president that is coming after our healthcare, our due process, and the paychecks of working families.”

Bush, in contrast, said in her concession speech that she’s “not just coming for AIPAC,” but also for “the billionaires, the corporations, that think they’re people.”

On paper, Bell and Bush are quite similar. Born in Missouri in the mid-1970s, they are both Black progressive Democrats who entered politics after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in the city of Ferguson. Bush served two consecutive terms in Congress, until she lost her seat to Bell in 2024.

Their political platforms also shared many positions on immigration, reproductive choice and healthcare. But they diverged when it came to the Middle East, with Bush’s campaign pledging to “stand for justice in Palestine” and Bell known for his pro-Israel stance.

In response to Bush’s defeat, the pro-Israel lobby posted on X that Bush has long “demonized AIPAC’s members, attacked Israel and refused to condemn Hamas terrorism — and voters made sure she did not make it back to Congress.”

For his part, Bell mentioned neither Israel nor AIPAC in his victory speech and referred to Jewish constituents only while rattling off a diverse list of St. Louis’s many cultures. Instead, he highlighted local concerns like gun violence and economic struggles.

Of those many cultures, the Black community is one of the city’s largest. Payne pointed out that in most Democratic primaries to date that have involved Democratic Socialists of America candidates, including Bush, Black voters have opted for the more moderate opponent.

“Older Black voters tend to be more religious in general,” he said. “They’re more of what we would generally consider establishment Democrats.”

He described Black women in particular as “the core of the Democratic Party,” noting that “they tend to be more moderate, and so these DSA candidates don’t typically earn their support.”

Theodore Johnson, a scholar of Black electoral politics, discussed this tendency in a Washington Post column on Wednesday and noted that the direction this population sways in primaries often depends on geography as much as on platform.

“To the degree that democratic socialists appeal to Black voters, it is a function of regional politics and culture, dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, the chance to elect Black legislators at a time when many are exiting Congress, candidate charisma and character, and viability in the general election,” Johnson stated.

Bell, for his part, earned the backing of the Congressional Black Caucus, whose political action committee declared that “the St. Louis area is sending a fighter back to Washington.” And the congressman enjoyed across-the-board endorsements from the Democratic establishment, including from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, fellow Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, California Rep. Peter Aguilar and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Bell also “ran a good campaign,” according to Payne, citing his prioritization of local concerns like affordability and Bush’s performance in Congress.

In one of her campaign ads, Bush claimed that Bell “doesn’t know how to fight for us.

During her two terms in Congress, however, Bush missed more than 240 roll call votes, equivalent to nearly 11% of votes she could have placed, according to the GovTrack database. The median missed votes for Congress members at the time was 2.2%. Bell has missed 18 votes, or 2.8% of those he could have placed, the records showed.

Pro-Israel advocates saw an additional factor in Bell’s success.

Haile Soifer, CEO of the Washington, DC-based Jewish Democratic Council of America, which endorsed Bell, described his win in a statement as a “resounding 22-point victory.” She praised the hard work of volunteers who made thousands of phone calls and mobilized networks of voters to secure the win for Bell.

“This work continues, as we engage voters in key districts and states in support of Democrats who share our values in the lead-up to the critically important midterms in November,” Soifer added.

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