A Republican could never win an election in Missouri’s first congressional district based in St Louis. The PVI is D+27 and the partisan lean is D+52. Trump was unable to get to 20% of the vote against Hillary or Biden. But a Republican, Wesley Bell, just did win— albeit by claiming to be a Democrat. Super-progressive incumbent Cori Bush St Louis itself, but the parts of the district in northern St Louis County, that’s where the massive spending by the pro-genocide lobby and by the crypto-criminals worked its magic. Bell managed to garner 51.2% after his campaign was financed almost entirely by big Republican donors who gave via AIPAC. Bell spent $4,957,024 to Bush’s $2,642,452. On top of that, AIPAC’s United Democracy Project deployed $8,586,723 against her, in connection with Reid Hoffman’s Mainstream Democrats PAC ($1,500,333), DMFI’s $484,953 plus the top post-Sam Bankman Fried crypto-criminal PAC, Fairshake ($1,406,523).
For Israel’s AIPAC, which has a long, sordid history of targeting black Democrats— especially women— who get uppity, it was a huge win after their defeat of Jamaal Bowman a few weeks ago, another progressive Democrat opposed to Israel’s slide into fascism and decision to go from ethnic cleansing to outright genocide against Palestinians. They were the two most expensive congressional primaries in history, both primarily financed by right-wing Zionists.
After her loss last night, Cori vowed a no-holds barred campaign against AIPAC. “Because now there are some strings that I have attached, and as much as I love my job, all they did was radicalize me, and now they should be afraid. They’re about to see this other Cori, this other side. There is nothing that happens in my life that happens in vain. So this happened because it was meant to happen. And let me say, it’s because of the work that I need to do. And let me say this, AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down!”
A strong Bush and Bowman ally, AOC, said she thinks “that what we do need to have a real conversation about is how a Republican— primarily Republican and largely Republican-financed— organization is playing and dumping money and playing an extremely divisive role in the Democratic Party.” The big progressive win in Missouri last night was in the Senate primary where Lucas Kunce trounced his two Democratic opponents with 67.7% of the vote. He will now face weird reactionary Republican incumbent, Josh Hawley in November. If you'd like to help Kunce replace Hawley, you can contribute directly to his campaign here.
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