After a hard-fought and historically costly primary, The Associated Press predicts that St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell has won the Democratic primary in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, defeating progressive incumbent Rep. Cori Bush, who becomes the second member of the House “squad” to be defeated in this primary cycle.
With 94% of the estimated vote (according to the Associated Press estimate) as of 11:00 p.m. ET, Bell leads with 51% of the vote, followed by Bush with 45.8% of the vote.
Bush is the third incumbent member of the House of Representatives to lose a primary to a non-incumbent opponent.
A wave of outside spending has propelled Bush’s campaign into big-ticket territory, closely mirroring the fierce primary run by fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in his New York campaign earlier this summer.
Nearly all of the outside money in both races came from the United Democracy Project PAC, the fundraising arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, motivated in part by Bush’s harsh criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
In this case, the United Democracy Project spent more than $7 million to challenge Bush and support Bell.
