Democratic Rep. Cori Bush’s criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza partly prompted her main primary challenger, prosecutor Wesley Bell, to enter the race.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This week is shaping up to be a big one in the lead-up to the November election. Vice President Kamala Harris is inching closer to deciding who her running mate will be, and that ticket will make its first appearance together at a Philadelphia rally Tuesday, the start of a weeklong tour of swing states. The renewed Democratic enthusiasm means Georgia might once again be in play in November, and former President Trump rallied there last night. He used the occasion to attack Georgia’s popular governor, Brian Kemp, as well as the state’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, two Republicans who notably refused to go along with Trump’s attempts to overturn the results in 2020.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: Your governor, Kemp, and Raffensperger – they’re doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win.
DETROW: But the presidential race is not the only race that’s worth watching. There’s an interesting primary in Missouri this week. Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush attracted both fans and foes for her vocal opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza. Groups supportive of Israel have spent millions to boost her primary challenger. St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum reports.
JASON ROSENBAUM, BYLINE: It’s Saturday morning at a spacious park in North St. Louis County, and Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush and her allies are rallying canvassers in what could be the most difficult political test since she was elected to represent the St. Louis-based 1st Congressional District in 2020. Bush is well aware her early advocacy for a cease-fire in Gaza led to a torrent of attacks from groups supportive of Israel. But with a critical primary against St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell looming closer, Bush has no regrets.
CORI BUSH: And so regardless of how much it hurts, you have to do what you’ve been called to do.
ROSENBAUM: Bush was a prominent figure in the protest movement that arose after a Ferguson police officer shot and killed Michael Brown. She’s become nationally known for mixing activism and public policy, most notably when she slept on the Capitol steps to extend an eviction moratorium. But her views on Israel came into deeper focus after Hamas’ October 7 attack. Some voters in her district, including a number who are Jewish, were outraged when, among other things, she vowed to speak out against what she described as, quote, “Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign.”
BUSH: What we were saying was, we can condemn Hamas and also care about the lives of the Palestinian people and not want to see them harmed as well.
ROSENBAUM: Israeli officials say the high civilian death toll is the consequence of Hamas hiding among noncombatants while waging war. Bush says she sees similarities between protesting over police killing African Americans and the movement to support self-determination for Palestinians.
BUSH: I believe that making sure that there is safety for Israelis and Palestinians and there is a place where there is liberation and freedom for both is key.
ROSENBAUM: Bush’s criticism of Israel’s military actions partly prompted Bell to enter the August 6 Democratic primary. He’s been the beneficiary of millions of dollars’ worth of ads from groups like the United Democracy Project, the political arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. And while Bell says he’s a strong defender of Israel, he says his focus is on how he can better represent the district.
WESLEY BELL: Her agenda has consistently been her own interests, and my agenda has always been the interests of this region.
ROSENBAUM: Few of the wall-to-wall television ads attacking Bush even mention Israel. They instead point out her vote against some of Biden’s key agenda items, like the federal infrastructure bill. This is a similar strategy that pro-Israel groups used against New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who lost a primary election recently to a Democratic challenger supportive of Israel. Eryka Porter is a political consultant who lives in the 1st Congressional District. While she thinks the war in Gaza is important to Black voters who make up a plurality of the 1st District’s population, she adds there are other issues that are more top of mind.
ERYKA PORTER: I hear a lot of disgruntled comments about the times that she reared away from Biden’s agenda.
ROSENBAUM: Bush says she voted against the federal infrastructure bill in 2021 because she wanted to vote first on Biden’s Build Back Better legislation, which included extensive investments in child care, environmental and health care programs. And Bush’s supporters contend the deluge of ads from pro-Israel groups that don’t mention Israel is part of a deliberate strategy since national polling shows African Americans don’t rank support or opposition to Israel high on their list of key priorities. John Bowman, a Bush supporter, says the barrage of attacks could backfire among the Black voters Bell needs to attract in order to win.
JOHN BOWMAN: And that’s why we support people like Cori, ’cause not only is she from the community, she’s of the community, and she has the passion and heart to do the right thing.
ROSENBAUM: Bush’s future in Congress will depend on whether Black voters Bowman speaks about still support and believe in her. If enough of them decide against sending her back to Washington, D.C., it could mark yet another titanic shift in St. Louis politics and a defeat for a prominent Israel critic. For NPR News, I’m Jason Rosenbaum in St. Louis.
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