Wesley Bell raised more than $65,000 from donors who also gave to several Missouri Republicans.
Molly Redden at HuffPost:
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.”
[...] 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.
If you thought that Wesley Bell was going to primary incumbent Rep. Cori Bush (D) a year ago and raising money from Republicans and pro-Israel Apartheid folk, you'd been laughed out the room.
In the #MO01 Democratic Primary, a pair of politicians who had their rise fueled by the Ferguson protests in the wake of the killing of Mike Brown nearly 10 years ago are facing off against each other.
Bell initially was gonna run for #MOSen, but switched instead to the Congressional set currently occupied by Bush due to her resolutely pro-Palestinian stances on the Israel/Hamas War and Gaza Genocide.










