Wesley Bell, a St. Louis prosecutor mounting a formidable Democratic primary challenge against Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), is campaigning as someone who will deliver more tangible results for the district while sharing many of her same left-wing views . values.
But one line on Bell’s political resume is at odds with his promise to champion a progressive agenda. In 2006, Bell managed the campaign of a conservative Republican running for the same seat Bell is running for today.
The candidate, Mark J. Byrne, emerged as a fierce opponent of abortion and crusader for gun rights. “I intend to protect the rights of the unborn,” his campaign website said. “I believe there is no greater job for elected officials.”
He ultimately lost to incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., who remained in office until Bush successfully challenged him in 2020.
“Nearly two decades ago, Wesley helped an old friend by volunteering for his campaign, despite their differences in political leanings and positions on many issues,” said Anjan Mukherjee, spokesperson for Bell’s campaign. “Wesley has been a progressive prosecutor who has worked to overturn wrongful convictions and refused to prosecute women for abortions, and he will be a progressive member of Congress working with President Biden.”
Byrne, who is now a municipal judge in a neighboring county, said Bell ran his campaign as a friendly favor. The two met as young lawyers in St. Louis County, he recalled, and became friends over years of poker nights.
“He wasn’t running a Republican campaign, he was running a friend’s campaign,” Byrne said in an interview with HuffPost this week. “He and I disagreed on political issues, but he did his best to help me get elected.”
Bell has avoided any mention of the Byrne campaign as he traverses Missouri’s bright blue 1st Congressional District, which includes St. Louis and Ferguson, the birthplace of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014.
Bush and Bell both emerged from the Ferguson uprising as political leaders. And the primaries were very much about their dueling claims to better represent progressive voters. In her four years in Congress, Bush, a former nurse, rallied national support for a COVID-era deportation moratorium and led the first calls for a ceasefire in the ongoing fighting in Gaza. Bell, who claims Bush gets better headlines than results, is campaigning on his record as a prosecutor in St. Louis County, a role in which he pursued alternatives to incarceration for people convicted of minor crimes.
Bush supporters argue that Bell is not a true progressive, but the Democrat favored by Republicans.
“Bell’s willingness to defend abortion rights depends solely on how it benefits his own political career,” said Usamah Andrabi, the spokesman for Justice Democrats, a grassroots group that supports Bush. “There is no excuse that can justify leading the campaign to elect a Republican extremist.”
Bell has done the same since May raised more than $65,000 in contributions from donors who normally give to Republicans. They include a former Republican speaker of the Missouri House, billionaire hedge fund founder Daniel Loeb, and the former finance chairman of Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) presidential super PAC.
At the end of the last fundraising quarter, Bell reported having about twice as much cash on hand as Bush.
Bell has also benefited from more than $300,000 in advertising paid for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee super PAC. While AIPAC supports candidates from both parties who support U.S. military aid to Israel, progressive critics have noted that the PAC top contributors are GOP megadonors. Bush is one of AIPAC’s top targets in the 2024 elections.
“The fact that my ‘Democratic’ opponent’s entry into politics involved running a Republican congressional campaign for a far-right, anti-abortion extremist is strikingly consistent, and it should tell voters everything they need to know,” Bush said in a statement. “He cannot be trusted to protect our reproductive freedoms and abortion rights, safeguard our democracy, and stand up to the MAGA Republican extremists in Congress.”
He and I disagreed on political issues, but he did his best to help me get elected.Mark J. Byrne
Bell’s stint as a Republican Party campaigner in 2006 came during a historic wave year for Democrats. Amid mounting anger over President George W. Bush’s mishandling of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina and a drumbeat of Republican scandals, Democrats easily retook the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Byrne, the candidate Bell worked for, epitomized the kind of fervent conservative voters who were turned away.
“I am pro-life and I will support a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of the unborn,” Byrne told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I will protect our Second Amendment right to bear arms. … I will increase funding for the Border Patrol and crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.”
When the Post-Dispatch editorial board endorsed his more moderate primary rival, Byrne’s campaign called it a “wonderful endorsement” of his “strongly conservative positions.”
“The Post is right,” his campaign website said. “While some may question their positions, Mark will not compromise his integrity just to become the ‘moderate’ candidate.”
Byrne won the primaries. But as the first political candidate in a Democratic stronghold, he proved a weak match for Clay, whose father had held the same seat in Congress for 32 years.
Byrne now denies running a right-wing conservative campaign, saying Bell’s role in his bid for Congress should not damage his own political future.
“In all the conversations I’ve ever had with Wesley, he’s not a Republican, he doesn’t think like a Republican and he doesn’t have a Republican agenda,” Byrne said. “He has always been a lifelong Democrat.”
But Megan Green, the chair of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen who is backing Bush for re-election, is not reassured.
“I find it a little strange that you focused your efforts on this in 2006, when there were quite a few Democrats running for office who needed help and support,” she said. “Friendship is one thing. But enabling friends with problematic views to hold positions of power is worrying.”
