{"id":28223,"date":"2026-08-05T06:36:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T01:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=28223"},"modified":"2026-08-05T06:36:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T01:36:25","slug":"establishment-democrats-notch-rare-win-as-wesley-bell-fends-off-dsa-backed-cori-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=28223","title":{"rendered":"Establishment Democrats notch rare win as Wesley Bell fends off DSA-backed Cori Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/L4zic6RbtWJQhU4XJX83l6K7H4U=\/0x0:4941x2779\/1366x768\/2026\/08\/04\/1785870673449.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.) defeated former Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/26\/cori-bush-hakeem-jeffries-speaker-2027-vote\" target=\"_blank\">Cori Bush<\/a> in his primary on Tuesday, thwarting an attempt by left-wing groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, to avenge Bush&#8217;s 2024 loss.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>It&#8217;s a win for the Democratic establishment in an election cycle where triumphs against left-wing insurgents have been few and far between. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>Bell&#8217;s win was propelled in part by United Democracy Project, the super PAC arm of AIPAC, which spent more than $3 million to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/09\/aipac-missouri-israel-cori-bush-bell-primary\" target=\"_blank\">thwart Bush&#8217;s comeback<\/a>, according to Federal Election Commission filings.<\/li>\n<li>Bell was also endorsed by House Democratic leadership and the Congressional Black Caucus, while Bush had the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and left-wing groups such as DSA and the Justice Democrats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Driving the news: <\/strong>Bell led Bush by 45 percentage points with<strong> <\/strong>about a quarter of precincts reporting<strong> <\/strong>as of Tuesday evening,<strong> <\/strong>with the Associated Press projecting he would win the nomination.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bush, a former progressive organizer, represented the St. Louis-based seat from 2021 to 2025.<\/li>\n<li>She lost her 2024 primary to Bell amid a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/01\/30\/justice-department-doj-squad-missouri-security\" target=\"_blank\">campaign finance scandal<\/a> and roughly $9 million in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/08\/04\/cori-bush-wesley-bell-aipac-negative-ads\" target=\"_blank\">AIPAC ad spending<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>By the numbers: <\/strong>In addition to UDP, the super PAC of the center-left New Democrat Coalition and the American Bridge-affiliated Project 218 spent another $1.1 million and $250,000, respectively, supporting Bell.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bush was supported by a little over $200,000 in collective outside spending from progressive groups, including MoveOn and the Working Families Party.<\/li>\n<li>Bell also out-raised and outspent Bush, bringing in nearly $3.6 million and spending more than $2.9 million as of July 15, compared with Bush&#8217;s $1.3 million in fundraising and $1.2 million in spending.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s next: <\/strong>Bell is all but certain to win in November \u2014 former Vice President Kamala Harris carried the district by 57 percentage points in 2024.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.) defeated former Rep. Cori Bush in his primary on Tuesday, thwarting an attempt by left-wing groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, to avenge Bush&#8217;s 2024 loss. Why it matters: It&#8217;s a win for the Democratic establishment in an election cycle where triumphs against left-wing insurgents have been few and far&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/L4zic6RbtWJQhU4XJX83l6K7H4U=\/0x0:4941x2779\/1366x768\/2026\/08\/04\/1785870673449.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}