In his Democratic primary challenge to Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor, is raising money hand over fist — and not all of it from Democrats.
Bell’s latest campaign finance filings include donations from notable sources such as Steven Tilley, a GOP former Missouri House speaker who’s now a lobbyist, and Daniel Loeb, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Third Point, who has donated millions to Republican causes.
David Steward, a billionaire tech CEO from St. Louis, has also supported Bell. Steward recently served as the finance chair of a super PAC that supported Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) run for president.
All told, Bell raised more than $65,000 from donors who also gave to one of Missouri’s two Republican senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, in their most recent campaigns, or Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, the leading Republican candidate for governor.
The influx of money for Bell from donors who normally back Republicans comes after the prosecutor abandoned a Senate campaign against Hawley in order to challenge Bush.
Bell jumped races in late October, a decision he partly credits to Bush’s stance on Israel’s military action in Gaza. Shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Bush introduced a resolution for a cease-fire and condemned Israel’s retaliatory military action as an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”
Around that time, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the deep-pocketed pro-Israel lobbying group, unveiled a plan to spend up to $100 million to unseat Bush and her fellow Israel critics. The group endorsed Bell in February.
“Wesley Bell is a progressive prosecutor who will stand up for President Biden’s agenda and oppose MAGA extremists and Donald Trump ― and everyone who supports or donates to his campaign knows that’s exactly what to expect from Wesley,” said Anjan Mukherjee, an adviser to Bell’s campaign. “Cori Bush has proven she would rather get headlines and protest than do the work of getting progressive results for St. Louis.”
Bell’s fundraising is part of a trend of Democratic primary challengers drawing financial support from Republican donors when they face off against big-name progressives.
Bhavini Patel, a Pittsburgh-area councilmember who challenged “Squad” member Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) in her April primary, got a six-figure boost from Republican billionaire Jeffrey Yass and a super PAC he funded — support that may have ultimately backfired. Lee campaigned on the fact that her opponent appealed to one of Trump’s closest allies, and she beat Patel by a wide margin.
Bush, a nurse, became a political activist after the 2014 police killing of Mike Brown and the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. In 2020, with support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and progressive groups that helped elect other left-wing Squad members, Bush pulled off a shocking upset of longtime incumbent Rep. Lacy Clay Jr. She has become an advocate for Black maternal health, abortion rights and diverting money from law enforcement to public services.
Bell’s political career was forged in Ferguson, too, where he became a city councilmember after the unrest. In 2018, Bell rode a wave of enthusiasm for progressive prosecutor candidates to become the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney. Bell is campaigning on elements of his record, such as his efforts to reduce the number of people jailed for minor offenses. But some activists who helped elect him claim he failed to differ much from his predecessors, starting with when he declined to seek charges over Brown’s death.
In deep-blue St. Louis, the winner of the August primary is almost certainly headed to Congress.
“My view is that Cori Bush is just too extreme,” Larry Absheer, a St. Louis donor who crossed party lines to donate to Bell, said in an interview. “For whatever reason, she’s on the anti-Israel bandwagon. While Wesley, I’m sure he and I disagree on a lot of things, I think he’d be a much better candidate. … He seems like a reasonable young man.”
Bush may be a more vulnerable target than other Squad members. Her 2021 vote against the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act angered some local unions, a number of which are now endorsing Bell. Bush also came under fire in 2022 for fundraising alongside a local activist who once posted about destroying Israel “along with every Israeli in it.”
In January, reports revealed the Justice Department is investigating Bush’s use of campaign funds to pay for security services, including hiring her husband for security work. A previous investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics concluded that the spending was appropriate given the volume of threats she faced.
Fueled in part by AIPAC’s endorsement, Bell has far outpaced Bush in fundraising; his campaign ended April with $1.1 million cash on hand to her $528,000. Bell has received more than $360,000 in individual contributions earmarked as having been directed to his campaign through AIPAC.
Bell “went from running for Senate against far-right Josh Hawley to courting Josh Hawley’s far-right donors instead, in a run against one of only two federally elected Democrats in Missouri,” said a campaign spokesperson for Bush. “His candidacy is nothing more than a Trojan horse for more right-wing extremism and will do nothing but hurt communities like St. Louis that he’s auditioning to serve in Congress.”
Bush and other progressives have accused AIPAC of laundering Republican money into their primaries. Its donors hail from both parties, but a significant number are GOP megadonors, such as Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and hedge fund manager Paul Singer. The United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, raised record donations last year, starting the election season with a whopping $41 million in ready cash.
Bush called on Democratic primary candidates to reject AIPAC’s support in a January interview with HuffPost.
“It’s simply not good enough for Democrats to run against Donald Trump and his MAGA extremist allies while running toward right-wing, dark-money groups like AIPAC,” she said.
Still, her allies hope Bell’s Republican support will weaken his standing among Democratic voters. Although any registered voter can participate in Missouri’s open primaries, in the 2020 presidential election, four out of five voters in Missouri’s 1st District voted Democrat.
“Wesley Bell went from challenging Sen. Josh Hawley to being bankrolled by Hawley’s anti-abortion Republican donors,” said Usamah Andrabi, the communications director for Justice Democrats, a grassroots group supporting several of the progressives under fire, including Bush. “Bell dropped out of a race against anti-abortion insurrectionist Hawley to run against Missouri’s first Black congresswoman and an abortion rights champion — and now he shares donors with Hawley.”
