Seven months after her high-profile primary defeat, former U.S. Representative Cori Bush is not ruling out a return to Congress. In a brief interview with Spectrum News on Thursday, Bush said she hasn’t set a public timeline for deciding whether she’ll run in 2026, leaving the door open to a potential comeback.
Bush lost her seat last August in a heated and expensive Democratic primary to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell. Bell went on to easily win the general election in Missouri’s deep-blue 1st Congressional District and has confirmed plans to seek a second term.
Since leaving office, Bush has focused her energy on building a political action committee aimed at supporting progressive candidates and participating in local tornado relief efforts. She’s also launched a podcast with Jamaal Bowman, a fellow progressive and former member of “The Squad,” who also lost his seat in 2024.
Bush’s progressive policy stances remain unchanged. She reiterated her support for a U.S. arms embargo to the Middle East, arguing that American tax dollars should be spent domestically rather than on overseas conflicts. “America First,” she said, should mean prioritizing domestic needs over military involvement abroad.
Her criticism of the Israeli government’s response to the October 2023 terror attacks and subsequent offensive in Gaza helped make her a target of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which spent nearly $9 million in support of Bell. The race ultimately became one of the most expensive House primaries in history, totaling around $19 million.
Much of the campaign’s focus, however, was not on foreign policy, but on Bush’s vote against the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill—a move her critics framed as a vote against President Biden. Bush defended the vote, saying the bill had been weakened too much to earn her support.
On Thursday, Bush appeared in Dellwood at a Juneteenth event, urging attendees to vote and resist being swayed by political advertisements. “TV commercials will have you going against the people that’s actually fighting for you,” she said, referencing her 2024 loss, “simply because they are more well-funded.”
