Congresswoman Cori Bush, a darling of the progressive left and member of the so-called Squad, may be the next lawmaker to fall in a Democratic primary thanks to political missteps, ethics investigations, and millions of dollars in outside spending from pro-Israel groups.

Ms. Bush’s primary challenger is leading in the most recent polls, and has already been endorsed by the local newspaper’s editorial board.

Ms. Bush was first elected to Congress in 2020 after defeating Congressman Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary. Mr. Clay had represented St. Louis in Congress for 20 years after his father served the same district for three decades.

Her narrow victory over the congressman was attributed to the post-George Floyd protest movement and anger from Democratic voters at legacy politics. 

Four years later, though, St. Louis may be done with the activist schtick. Wesley Bell announced in October that he would challenge Ms. Bush in the primary, saying she was not acting in the best interest of St. Louis by voting against key pieces of legislation that President Biden supported and not standing with America’s allies. “Our world is in a dangerous place and we need steady and effective leadership, and we aren’t getting it here in the first district,” Mr. Bell said at the time. 

One example of that lack of leadership, Mr. Bell says, is Ms. Bush’s refusal to support the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure legislation championed by the president. She said she voted against it because Republicans and some moderate Democrats were opposed to an unrelated multi-trillion-dollar social spending package. 

A poll released on Monday found that Mr. Bell’s message is resonating with St. Louis voters. The Mellman Group, which is aligned with the pro-Israel outside spending group Democratic Majority for Israel, finds that Mr. Bell leads Ms. Bush in the primary, 48 percent to 42 percent. In June, Mr. Bell was leading by a point in that same poll. 

“Cori Bush has a really solid grassroots base that is loyal to her, and that’s how she was able to win her upset over Lacy Clay. Those folks aren’t swayed,” a political analyst for the local NBC affiliate KSDK, Anita Manion, said. “What we’re seeing is there were a lot of undecideds. They seem to be trending towards Wesley Bell.”

Mr. Bell has served as the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County since 2019, making him the “top cop” of the city and the metro area. 

Ms. Bush has been criticized not only for her lack of effectiveness — in voters’ eyes — as a lawmaker, but as someone who is more focused on national attention than her district. Just 12 days after Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7, she called for an “immediate cease-fire” in “occupied Palestine.” On October 29, she accused Israel of waging an “ethnic cleansing campaign” against Palestinian Arabs. 

She has voted against a number of resolutions on the House floor related to the conflict, including one that would have barred members of Hamas from immigrating to America. Before the war even began, in 2021, she voted against funding the Iron Dome defensive missile system for Israel. 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the largest newspaper in the region, mentioned Ms. Bush’s incessant criticisms of Israel in its editorial endorsement of Mr. Bell. 

“Israel’s conduct of the war has been far from perfect, but it remains a democracy fighting for survival against an evil terrorist organization,” the editorial board writes. “Bush’s tendency to equate both sides — and even to side with the terrorists, as when she cast one of just two House votes against a resolution to bar Hamas members from the U.S. — should in itself be disqualifying for re-election.”

Pro-Israel groups have spent millions of dollars to oust Ms. Bush in the August 6 Democratic primary, though not nearly as much as they spent to defeat Congressman Jamaal Bowman, a fellow “Squad” member and Westchester County Democrat, who lost his primary to George Latimer. 

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s spending arm, United Democracy Project, has spent more than $3.8 million against Ms. Bush so far — about one-quarter of the amount they spent in the Bowman-Latimer primary. 

Not only is Ms. Bush under fire for anti-Israel stances, but personal lapses as well. In January, it was reported that Ms. Bush was under investigation by the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission for alleged misuse of campaign funds, specifically related to her use of funds to pay a private security firm that is owned by her husband. The payments began before they were married and have continued until at least the most recent campaign filing date. 

In a statement responding to those reports, Ms. Bush confirmed the investigation and said it was launched after what she describes as “right wing organizations” complaining that she had paid her husband for his work for her as a security consultant. She said the security is necessary because of the “relentless threats to my physical safety and life.”

“I am under no illusion that these right-wing organizations will stop politicizing and pursuing efforts to attack me and the work that the people of St. Louis sent me to Congress to do,” she said.