Progressives reckon with massive campaign spending deficit after Cori Bush defeat

Progressives are on the short end of a spending war with pro-Israel and other establishment Democratic forces. And they know it.

Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush's primary loss Tuesday at the hands of St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell put into stark relief once again how progressive lawmakers are at risk of getting swarmed by gobs of outside money if they become targets of well-heeled advocacy groups. Bell focused much of his race on local issues and congressional legislation, but he was backed by more than $8 million from the pro-Israel United Democracy Project.

Liberals for years have lamented lax campaign finance laws that allow outside groups to flood races with millions in spending. But until those laws are changed, the rules of the electoral road stand -- and even progressives say they probably can't catch up.

"You can try to out-organize it, the classic left formula of getting enough people at the doors and in the community as the antidote. But how do you do that to scale?" asked progressive Democratic strategist Angelo Greco. "You can't match that unless you have your own fundraising operation, and we're not organized at that level just yet."

Progressives, who had been on an upswing since 2016, found themselves playing defense after Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip.

UDP, which is affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and newer groups such as Democratic Majority for Israel, dumped millions into races to defeat candidates or lawmakers perceived as critical of Israel.

Bush's defeat followed New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman's loss to Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Latimer and UDP outspent Bowman and his allies by a nearly 5-to-1 margin, and Bush and her allies were outspent by Bell's allies (including UDP) by a roughly 3.5-to-1 margin, according to AdImpact.

The attacks on Bush and Bowman largely didn't focus on Israel, instead homing in on issues like their opposition to President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill. But the two lawmakers' criticism of Israel opened the door to the spending -- and neither Bush nor Bowman could keep up on the airwaves.

"If she had just enough money to be on the air, they could have countered it," said Joseph Geevarghese, the head of Our Revolution, a progressive group. "We're not saying you've got to match dollar-for-dollar, but you've got to be able to have a presence."

To be certain, not every liberal lawmaker is facing such daunting opposition. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the highest profile House progressives, is outspending her rivals in her Minneapolis primary, according to data from AdImpact.

But the Bowman and Bush losses have progressives confronting their inferior financial footing, all while still railing against campaign finance laws they deem too loose, experts said.

Some progressives said the best strategy is making such hefty outside spending unappetizing in Democratic politics and that investing more money of their own, even for progressives, shouldn't be the objective.

"The goal should not be, how can we turn $20 million Democratic primaries into $40 million Democratic primaries. That is a race to the bottom for our democracy," said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the progressive group Justice Democrats.

"We should force more members of Congress to stand up to these interests and make taking this money toxic," he added. "Part of it is educating voters about who these special interest groups are … and why they're advancing those interests."

One avenue progressives eyed is triggering a legal challenge.

A petition in Maine would limit contributions to super PACs, vehicles that can spend unlimited sums. The goal is to trigger a court battle that makes its way to the Supreme Court, hoping to convince the justices that the 2010 Citizens United decision -- which limited what campaigns themselves can raise, but not super PACs due to their perceived independence -- is too permissive in today's politics.

Other operatives pointed to progressives' overall structure as an area for improvement.

The movement is highly fractured, with multiple advocacy groups with their own origin stories and policy niches all competing for a slice of the money pie. That's on top of the candidates themselves running their own races.

Cooperation could be key, given that not all races are considered competitive and outside groups' goals end up overlapping.

The tactic was tried once already this year, with Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive without a serious primary challenger this year, donating $500,000 from her campaign to Justice Democrats' "Squad" protection branch to help Bowman. And while the move didn't save the New Yorker in the end, it could offer a precedent for greater collaboration.

"There needs to be a convening among progressives from different organizations, different leaders, to talk about the challenge, because what happened to Jamaal Bowman and what happened to Cori Bush is going to continue to happen," Geevarghese said.

Beyond cooperation, some progressives also urged a more discerning strategy.

Some candidates have raised mounds of dough for safe races. Others have raked in cash for challenges to incumbents who are fairly well insulated. And still others have raised decent money but, as in the case of Bowman and Bush, adopted a more defensive posture, responding to attacks that defined them in voters' eyes rather than establishing their own brands.

That, operatives said, has to change.

"Organizationally, we can do better about picking and choosing where to deploy those resources," Greco said, adding that candidates and campaigns need to be better about "anticipating those attacks."

"Cori Bush, actually as a Squad member, progressive member, if maybe more resources were put into telling the story that … she was a champion for the president's agenda, instead of getting smeared as someone who was a detractor."

Progressives' critics, for their part, insisted that money isn't the problem and that liberal lawmakers they targeted are just unpopular.

"I think the whole spending disparity issue, the way it's being raised, is fundamentally insulting to voters. We provide voters with information that they may not otherwise have had. It's up to them to decide whether that information is important," said Democratic Majority for Israel President Mark Mellman.

And progressives conceded that the movement's problems can't be entirely chalked up to spending disparities.

Bowman, beyond being critical of Israel, in November floated false theories that sexual assault and rape did not occur during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. Months later, Bowman apologized. He also drew negative headlines after pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol ahead of a House spending bill vote. Bush found herself in hot water after the Justice Department launched an investigation over her campaign's spending on security services that included work by her husband.

And both voted against Biden's signature infrastructure bill, a vote they chalked up to the legislation not fulfilling the president's original promise, but that helped critics tag them as unserious legislators.

"Tactically, the campaign was messy. It was not a well-run campaign, and she had some unforced errors," one progressive operative said of Bush's reelection bid.

"Could they have been less principled and voted with everyone else? Sure, probably might have saved their careers. But that's not the type of people we try to send to Congress," the person added of the infrastructure votes.

But strategists expressed confidence that progressives could pick themselves up off the mat and that the movement's fire hadn't been doused by the recent losses.

"I have no doubt that does dissuade people from potentially running and dissuade them from speaking their conscience. So yeah, there's concern about that," Faiz Shakir, a prominent liberal operative, said of the spending against progressives. "But as long as there's a beating heart of progressives out there to call attention to it, I believe that at least you'll hear a debate and discourse about it."