Bell vs. Bush: The Rematch the Country Is Watching
Ferguson’s two political children meet again, two years after the most expensive weeks in primary history.
On candidates we publish records, votes, donors, dollars, and dates, and nothing else. No endorsements, no scores, no adjectives. The judgment is yours.
📌 The Stakes Are HighFive Democrats are on the August 4 ballot in the 1st: incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell, former Rep. Cori Bush, Alissa Murphy, Carl E. Harris Sr., and Carl Earnest Henderson. The district remains Missouri’s only heavily Democratic seat, so the primary is the race. In 2024, Bell defeated Bush 51.1 to 45.6 in one of the most expensive House primaries in American history. A February 2026 poll showed Bell ahead 44 to 40.
In 2024, the United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, the israel lobby’s largest organization, spent $9.3 million against Bush or for Bell. Bell has raised over $1.9 million through March 2026 and holds the fundraising lead this cycle. Current-cycle FEC totals for all five candidates publish here at the next report. Records in verification · publishing as confirmed
🗝️ The RecordWesley Bell
Elected to the Ferguson City Council in 2015, in the elections that followed the uprising. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, 2019 to 2025; cites a diversion program he says cut the county jail population for low-level nonviolent offenses by 30 percent. In Congress since 2025; cites $46 million in community project funding. His 2024 victory was backed by $9.3 million in spending from the United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, the israel lobby’s largest organization, the heaviest outside intervention in the race and among the heaviest in House primary history.
Cori Bush
Organizer in the streets of Ferguson from 2014. Nurse and pastor. Represented the 1st from 2021 to 2025, the first Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress, unseated in 2024 in the race that drew the $9.3 million documented above. Announced her comeback in October 2025. Her campaign has centered Bell’s record regarding israel and the war on Gaza, which she, alongside leading human rights organizations, names as a genocide.
Alissa Murphy · Carl E. Harris Sr. · Carl Earnest Henderson
Documented profiles publish here after verification. Records in verification · publishing as confirmed
National coverage will frame this as “the Squad versus the moderates,” a Beltway taxonomy that explains nothing about St. Louis. Both leading candidates come out of the same uprising and the same streets. The disagreement, among them and among the district’s voters, is about method and about israel’s genocide in Gaza, and it deserves to be covered as what it is.
✊🏾 What You Can DoIf you are in the 1st, this is decided August 4. Read both records, watch the debates, decide with your own eyes.
