Cori Bush becomes the second Squad member to lose her primary as she’s ousted from Missouri seat

Democratic representative Cori Bush became the second member of the Squad to lose her primary as county prosecutor Wesley Bell beat her in a grueling and expensive primary on Tuesday evening.

Pro-Israel groups spent massive amounts of money to depose Bush in the district where she pulled off an upset victory against a longtime incumbent Democrat in 2020.

The United Democracy Project, a super PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent $9.2m against Bush, according to AdImpact. That made the primary the second-most expensive one of the year after UDP spent millions in opposition to fellow Squad member Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York .

By contrast, Bush’s campaign only spent $1.1m and the Justice Democrats, a group that supports left-wing candidates, spent only $2.5m in the district that includes St. Louis.

Bush is one a number of Democrats who have advocated for a ceasefire after Hamas launched a surprise attack in Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, which led Israel to respond with a military campaign that has killed almost 40,000 people in Gaza.

She and many fellow Democrats boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress last month . Bush also boycotted Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s joint address to Congress before the October 7 attack .

But ads from the United Democracy Project did not mention Israel, rather the fact she voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, arguing she was an ineffective legislator who regularly crossed President Joe Biden.

Bush did vote against the legislation on the premise that she feared that passing it first without Build Back Better--Democrats’ proposed social spending bill that they hoped to pass along party lines--would cause the latter to die, which it did when Senator Joe Manchin, who later left the Democratic Party, announced his opposition.

For her part, Bush advertised her support for abortion rights and work with the Biden administration .

Bush, like many of her fellow Squad members, sought a more confrontational style of Democratic politics, calling herself a “politivist.” In 2021, when an eviction moratorium under the Covid-19 pandemic began, Bush led a sit-in at the Capitol steps , which led the Biden administration to extend it until the Supreme Court killed it.

At the same time, Bush faced lingering questions about the fact she was under investigation by the Justice Department .

Other members of the Squad have been able to survive their primaries. Representative Summer Lee knocked off a competitor in Pennsylvania earlier this year, while New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handily disposed of primary challengers.