Former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), one of the most virulently anti-Israel members of Congress during her tenure in Washington, is expected to launch a rematch against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO), who defeated her in 2024, according to political observers in St. Louis.

Local Jewish leaders expect the primary campaign to be a bitter repeat of the 2024 campaign, which focused heavily on Israel. Bell, who garnered substantial support from the Jewish community locally and pro-Israel groups nationally, has remained a strong supporter of Israel in office, even amid criticism from local progressive activists.

Braxton Payne, a St. Louis-based political strategist, described Bush’s intentions as “the worst-kept secret” and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported she may launch as early as this week, citing sources close to her campaign.

Payne said that this cycle, when Bell is still a freshman, would be Bush’s best chance of ousting Bell and reclaiming her seat.

“Her strongest place is inside the city [of St. Louis] and you’re seeing… a strong pendulum swinging in regards to the conflict in Gaza and Palestine, and I think that is going to be probably one of her main narratives that she’ll lead with,” Payne told Jewish Insider. “Among some of the progressive votes, especially among her base in St. Louis City, I think she’s going to do fairly well with those people.”

But one of Bush’s biggest vulnerabilities, he continued, is that she failed, once in office, to engage with or show up for major local groups and organized labor. 

“That still seems to be the case. … And Wesley has made a conscious effort to do so, not only with organized labor that may have backed him, but people and organizations that did not back him,” Payne continued, “which I think is obviously important to currying favor among voters — and obviously large groups that have power, influence and, of course, money.”

Payne said that the race is likely to be close, and that there will likely be similar interest in the race from outside groups, like AIPAC, that invested heavily in 2024. Primary turnout could be impacted by other referenda on the ballot, which could fuel Democratic primary turnout.

Missouri recently redrew its congressional maps and, while Bell’s district was not changed significantly, the redrawn map includes a few additional precincts that may be more favorable to Bell, according to Payne, though the impacts will likely be minor. The maps also face various legal challenges.

Bush’s campaign is also $13,000 in debt, and she’ll need significant grassroots support and/or backing from a group like Justice Democrats to fill her coffers, Payne noted. 

Her husband is facing a federal indictment for COVID relief aid fraud, a controversy Payne said has garnered public attention. Bush herself faced House Ethics Committee and Department of Justice investigations during her time in office.

At the same time, Payne noted, the strategy for groups backing Bell, including organized labor and AIPAC, is unknown. If AIPAC gets involved in the race, “even if they spend a bunch of money, does that actually end up hurting him with voters more than it does helping him?”

Bell’s supporters are signaling that they’re ready for a fight.

“Cori Bush spent her scandal-ridden time in Washington looking out for herself, while hiding from her constituents and ignoring their needs,” a Democratic strategist familiar with the Bell campaign’s thinking said. “As a result, Missouri voters kicked her out of office, and elected Wesley Bell, who promised to deliver better and more accountable representation. St. Louis is better off with a congressman who is focused every day on delivering for them, than someone who is more interested in furthering her personal agenda.”

Jewish leaders who supported Bell’s campaign also say that they are preparing for the campaign ahead, and a retread of the ugly 2024 race.

“The mainstream Jewish community is very much united in supporting Wesley Bell, and obviously not supporting Cori Bush for all of the same reasons we were not going to support her last time,” Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, who helped organize a coalition of rabbis to oppose Bush in the previous campaign, told Jewish Insider. “The Jewish community, I’m confident, is going to rally again to support Wesley and hopefully make sure that he wins.”

He said he’s hopeful that leaders who did not get involved in the previous race might get involved to back Bell this time. “Jewish community leaders are ready to jump back in however we’re needed.”

Stacey Newman, a former state lawmaker who led Jewish outreach on Bell’s campaign team, agreed that the “mainstream Jewish community has remained organized and united” — in addition to feeling the impacts of antisemitism hit home in a recent firebombing incident.

“We won’t have to start from scratch,” Newman continued. “We still have 30-plus rabbis willing to go to work. I know the Orthodox community who typically do not vote Democrat are very thankful for Wesley’s leadership. He’s one of the few Democrats in St. Louis who are willing to support our community publicly.”

A town hall organized by Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) last week in St. Louis turned contentious as a large group of demonstrators turned out to heckle the freshman congressman — fresh off a trip to Israel — over his support for the Jewish state. A scuffle later broke out between security guards and some of the demonstrators.

The situation highlights the ongoing antagonism from local far-left activists against Bell, which could foreshadow a primary challenge to the congressman from former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), whom Bell unseated, or one of her political allies.

Bell, during the 90-minute town hall, pushed back on accusations from demonstrators that Israel is committing genocide, emphasizing that “Israel was attacked by an openly genocidal terrorist group,” while calling for Hamas’ defeat, the release of hostages, the end of the war and ensuring food aid in Gaza.

Demonstrators shouted as Bell sought to address the crowd, disrupting the event repeatedly and accusing Bell of supporting the killing of children, among a variety of other offenses. Some Bell supporters in the audience — whom local reports described as about half of the crowd — also at times exchanged heated words with the congressman’s critics.

“There’s a lot of folks who don’t want to have the conversation,” Bell said during the event. “They just want to spew what they think is important, but they don’t want to have an actual debate because these are tough issues. So, now we’re going to have the conversation — whether you like it or not.”

Bell told local news channel KSDK that he had expected even more disruptions and that he was willing to meet with critics.

“Congressman Bell came prepared to answer questions, including tough ones, about the issues on the minds of his constituents — from standing up to Trump to helping tornado victims rebuild,” a Bell spokesperson told Jewish Insider. “Even with the disruptions, he made sure to respond to as many questions as possible, and he’s continuing to follow up with those he didn’t reach. That’s the work he’s committed to doing every day.”

Braxton Payne, a St. Louis-based Democratic strategist, told JI he recognized some of the individuals involved in the demonstrations as longtime backers of Bush. He said that the political coalitions supporting and opposing Bell in 2024 have remained largely unchanged since Bell took office.

“You’re still seeing the same bases, cohorts of support” as in the 2024 race, Payne said. “I do think there is a sentiment for someone to run against [Bell] in a primary” with support from the “de-facto Cori Bush base.”

He predicted that the 2026 primary election will see higher-than-average turnout among suburban St. Louis County voters — a development likely to help Bell, who in 2024 won St. Louis County but not the city of St. Louis — given other open seats likely to be on the ballot.

Payne said that a mid-decade redistricting effort by Missouri Republicans is expected to largely leave St. Louis-area congressional seats untouched, if it succeeds. But if the redraw brings more of St. Louis County into Bell’s district, that would also likely help boost his support base.

Bush has publicly kept open the possibility of another run for Congress, saying in June that she wouldn’t provide a timeline for when she would decide whether to run again. Bush recently founded a national PAC, Politivist Action.

Payne said that Bush’s husband’s legal troubles — he was charged with defrauding federal pandemic relief programs — could play into her decision on whether to run again. He added that she has been less present at local political events since leaving office than she was before she became a member of Congress.

Bush did not respond to a request for comment about her plans.

Asked by KSDK about the possibility of a rematch with Bush, Bell said that he wouldn’t address the hypothetical question, but that he is working to support and represent his district daily.

Megan Green, the president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, is also rumored to be interested in the seat, local observers said, but said in an email to JI that she is “not running.” Green is a Bush ally who recently accused Israel of genocide and has claimed that AIPAC exercises malicious influence over the Democratic Party.

Bell’s campaign appears to be gearing up early for the possibility of a competitive primary — he has raised nearly $700,000 thus far this cycle.

Stacey Newman, the executive director of the Missouri Alliance Network and a former Democratic state lawmaker who led Jewish outreach for Bell’s 2024 campaign, told JI that Bell’s supporters in the Jewish community expect that the congressman will face a primary challenge, but that it’s not entirely clear yet from whom.

Newman said that, given some of the names floated as potential challengers to Bell, the race would likely rehash the same issues of the 2024 campaign, which included a heavy focus on Israel policy.

Newman said that the unruly town hall had further contributed to unease and fear in the St. Louis-area Jewish community about the community’s safety, in the wake of the firebombing of cars in a residential neighborhood targeting a Jewish family whose son served in the IDF. No suspects have been announced or arrested in the case, which is being investigated as an antisemitic hate crime, and local Jewish groups are offering a $30,000 reward.

The events at the town hall follow a series of other aggressive anti-Israel demonstrations in the area, she noted.

“The Jewish community is on edge in terms of our safety,” Newman said.

St. Louis’ Jewish community is reeling after a targeted antisemitic attack in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning on a family whose college-aged son served in the IDF.

The family, living in a quiet suburban neighborhood with a significant Jewish population, found three of their cars burned and a message spray-painted on the street which read, in part, “Death to the IDF.” Another part of the message specifically targeted the IDF veteran, local news reports and members of the local Jewish community said, but has not been publicly disclosed.

The attack has shaken a Jewish community that has faced frequent and heated protests since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. This is the first time that activity has turned openly violent. Local and federal officials are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

“People are just really startled,” Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, a board member of the Missouri Alliance Network, a local political organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel, said. 

He said the local Jewish community has been “on edge” for months following the violent antisemitic attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo. “But when it actually happens in your own backyard, it takes on a different meaning. I think people are legitimately worried and also just really upset.”

Abraham said that he and other Jewish leaders are in close touch with local law enforcement, but attacks targeting individual families are harder to prevent than those targeting Jewish institutions.

“[Law enforcement] know any time we’re having a service or event, but it’s hard to protect everyone’s individual home in the middle of the night,” Abraham said. He said he’d had a conversation earlier Wednesday with a congregant who asked if he should take down his mezuzah, for fear that it would make his home a target.

Stacey Newman, director of the Missouri Alliance Network, said the community is “completely on edge.”

“Everybody’s worried about their kids,” Newman continued. Newman said she’s heard about another family whose children had served in the IDF that had asked local police to keep a closer watch on their home.

A coalition of Jewish organizations including the local American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and National Council of Jewish Women branches, the St. Louis Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum issued a joint statement condemning the attack.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the attack on members of our community last night. This is more than vandalism; it is a hateful act of intimidation and only the latest example of what happens when antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric are normalized,” the organizations said. “We are a resilient community, and we will not be deterred in our quest to uproot antisemitism and hatred, alone and with our partners. Antisemitism is a social ill that must be rejected by all of society.”

Local and federal officials have condemned the attack.

“This targeted attack against the Jewish community in St. Louis is horrific and must be met with full condemnation,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said. “Antisemitism has no place in our society. Everyone involved in this awful attack must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) said, “Hate in any form is unacceptable and should never be tolerated. Those responsible must be held accountable to the full extent of law.”

Leo Terrell, who leads the Department of Justice’s antisemitism task force, described the incident as “horrific,” and said that he had engaged the FBI and the attorney general, as well as spoken directly to the family and informed them that the DOJ task force will be focused on the attack.

“I am outraged. Antisemitic violence has no place in America, not in St. Louis and not anywhere,” Terrell said. “We will pursue every avenue to bring the perpetrators to justice. If you commit antisemitic hate crimes, you will be caught. And you will be held accountable.”

State Rep. George Hruza described the incident as “Jew-hatred violence” and an “act of pure evil,” linking it to the attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo.

“Nothing happening in the world at large can justify such a hateful act,” Hruza said. “This incident is antisemitism, plain and simple. This act did not arise in a vacuum. Since the mass murder, torture, rapes, and hostage-taking by the terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic rhetoric has become commonplace in the United States. Tragically, with echoes of 1930s Germany, this rhetoric has fueled incitement to violence.”

Hruza, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said he is angry but committed to continuing to push to pass legislation to combat antisemitism in the state Legislature.

Newman and Abraham said that the IDF veteran in question had been individually targeted by protests in the past, when he delivered a speech in the community following his return from his service earlier this year.

A poster advertising that protest, reviewed by JI, includes the individual’s name and photograph, and the caption “Resistance is Justified, When People are Occupied,” and calls on supporters to “join us for a powerful demonstration to oppose the Zionist military presence in our community and to demand accountability for those who help commit atrocities abroad.”

By the time a group of activists attempted to erect an encampment at Washington University in St. Louis in late April 2024, Andrew D. Martin, the chancellor of the university, had already carefully considered how he would respond. It was a benefit, he said recently, of being “in the middle of the country,” far from the national media that ceaselessly covered the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University and other high-profile campuses. 

Campus police arrested more than 100 people, the vast majority of whom had no ties to the university, and the encampment was shut down. Faculty, staff and student leaders all spoke out against university leadership for bringing in the police. But Martin saw it as an opportunity to enforce university rules and avoid the chaos playing out elsewhere. 

“We take a very strong pro-free speech approach,” Martin, a political scientist, told Jewish Insider in an interview last month. “But we also have restrictions which are based on time, place and manner. And for us, it was really clear, and we made it very clear to the campus community. Look, you can protest all you want. … But you can’t take over our buildings, you can’t deface our property and you also can’t set up an encampment.”  

Since then, Martin has teamed up with Daniel Diermeier, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University, in something of an informal pact — a joint effort to promote principled leadership in higher education, presenting their two schools as a refreshing counterweight to the dysfunction plaguing higher-ranked competitors like Harvard and Columbia. Both campuses largely steered clear of major antisemitic incidents in that intense spring semester in 2024. (The period has not been without criticism for Diermeier, either; he faced pushback from some faculty and students after canceling a vote on an anti-Israel boycott resolution.)

This February, Diermeier and Martin wrote a joint op-ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education calling on other universities to reject “creeping politicization.”

“The universities we oversee have drawn a line against politicization so that we can continue contributing to the nation’s competitiveness and strength abroad, and to stability and prosperity here at home. All American research universities should do the same,” Diermeier and Martin wrote. 

Published just days after President Donald Trump took office with the promise of scrutinizing elite liberal universities, the article was an attempt at setting out a marker, signaling to Trump and potential applicants that Vanderbilt and WashU haven’t lost focus like so many other universities who have found themselves in crisis mode since the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023. 

Both schools were committed to institutional neutrality — a position that has now been adopted by more than 100 American universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Syracuse — well before Oct. 7 and its aftermath led other university administrators to conclude it is in their interests to not weigh in on complex political and social causes.  

“Whether it’s fossil fuel divestment or Ukraine or other things, we’re just not going to engage. Our faculty have strong views on those issues, as do our students. It’s their job to be advocates. It’s our job to create a playing field, if you will, for them to have those views,” said Martin. 

Diermeier said universities that had not adopted a stance of principled neutrality were susceptible to “competitive lobbying,” where students demand a response on one side or another.

“We saw this in gory detail after Oct. 7, where you had one group who wanted to say, ‘Well, you need to denounce Israel of genocide,’ and the other one said, ‘No, you have to support Israel,’” Diermeier told JI in June. “It ripped many university campuses apart. And we were very, very clear from the beginning that we are committed to institutional neutrality. We will not divest from companies that have ties to Israel. We will not denounce Israel’s ‘genocide.’ We will not boycott products that are associated with Israel in any way, shape or form.” 

It comes down to the role of a university — and whether it is up to university administrators to pick a side. Doing so, the chancellors argued, undermines trust in their institutions. (Others take a different position, like Ora Pescovitz, president of Oakland University, a small public university in Michigan: “A president’s voice is precious,” she told JI last year.)

“There’s a certain arrogance for us, that we think that if, like, Harvard speaks, that somehow an issue is settled,” said Diermeier, a political scientist and management scholar. “What is the purpose of the university? What we’re very clear on is that universities are about the creation and dissemination of knowledge through research and education and related activities. They are not in the business of becoming partisans in any type of political or ideological battle.” 

Many universities are still navigating the post-Oct. 7 maelstrom, trying to handle competing concerns from students, parents, alumni and faculty — all while facing civil rights investigations by the federal government. In March, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote a letter to 60 schools under investigation for antisemitic discrimination, including Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Stanford and Princeton. 

“I think people that visit us see the difference, and they say this is a great place for Jewish families and for Jewish students to thrive, and we’re very proud of that,” said Diermeier. “We want to be a place where every member of our community can thrive. And right now, in the current environment, I think the contrast between what’s happening at other universities and what’s happening at Vanderbilt is visible for people.” 

Vanderbilt and WashU were not on the list. That presents an opening for them to reach Jewish students with concerns about what they’re seeing elsewhere, particularly as the Jewish student populations at many top universities have shrunk. According to Hillel International, just 7% of Harvard’s undergraduates are Jewish, compared to 14% at Vanderbilt and 22% at WashU. 

“The Jewish community at Washington University is very robust. Our students are comfortable and proud living out their Jewish identity on our campus, and have been able to do so for generations. And we’ll make sure that they’re able to do this over generations to come,” said Martin. WashU implemented a new transfer program soon after Oct. 7 to allow students to transfer for the spring semester, rather than waiting until the following fall. Several Jewish students took advantage of it after facing antisemitism on their old campuses. 

WashU’s appeal to Jewish students is not new; it has for years been tagged with the nickname “WashJew.” And more than two decades ago, Vanderbilt’s former chancellor said that targeting Jewish students was an explicit part of the university’s bid to better compete with Ivy League schools. Diermeier seeks to continue that push.

“I think people that visit us see the difference, and they say this is a great place for Jewish families and for Jewish students to thrive, and we’re very proud of that,” said Diermeier. “We want to be a place where every member of our community can thrive. And right now, in the current environment, I think the contrast between what’s happening at other universities and what’s happening at Vanderbilt is visible for people.” 

“It became clear to Daniel [Diermeier] and me that we’re never going to be able to have the sustained federal support or, for that matter, state support of our institutions, without broad support of the American people, and that the American people, in some respect, lost faith in us because of places where we have diverged from those important core principles,” said Martin. “That was amplified by the events of Oct. 7, or what happened after Oct. 7.”

Martin and Diermeier see themselves and their institutions as the stewards of a forward-looking case for higher education at a time when the institution is under attack, both from Washington and from Americans, whose trust in higher education has plummeted. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans said in 2015 that they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in U.S. higher education, according to Gallup. In 2024, that number was 36%. Among Republicans, the number dropped from 56% to 20% in nine years. Among Democrats, the decrease was milder — but still present, moving from 68% to 56%.  

Oct. 7 only sharpened that distrust, Martin said. Regaining that confidence, he argued, is imperative to saving the institution of higher education — and staving off federal funding threats from Trump. 

“It became clear to Daniel [Diermeier] and me that we’re never going to be able to have the sustained federal support or, for that matter, state support of our institutions, without broad support of the American people, and that the American people, in some respect, lost faith in us because of places where we have diverged from those important core principles,” said Martin. “That was amplified by the events of Oct. 7, or what happened after Oct. 7.”

It’s not just about values. It’s a savvy political move. After all, both Vanderbilt and WashU would be in trouble if federal research dollars stopped flowing to the schools, or if Trump made the call that they could not admit international students, as is the case with Harvard. 

When asked about his approach to the Trump administration, Diermeier repeatedly declined to answer questions about the matter on the record. 

Martin acknowledged that he is concerned.

“I’m worried about everything coming out of Washington, whether that’s legislative action or actions of the administration, around endowment excise tax, federal research funding, the ability to have federal financial aid, the ability to admit international students. All of those things are up for grabs,” Martin said. 

But what WashU and Vanderbilt are willing to do is acknowledge that there are big problems in American academia. In other words, they’re saying that Trump’s got a point.

“Here are two institutions that are willing to stand in the public square and say, American higher education has lost its way in some respects,” said Martin. “We’re great institutions, and we’re committed to working to ensure that our institutions and higher education writ large will do better in the future.”