For the second week in a row, Democrats had a nightmare primary that threatens to tear a state apart. This time, however, the DSA candidate not only blew a lead but the entire election.
Francesca Hong had control of Democrats’ gubernatorial primary for weeks in Wisconsin. The party responded by attempting to rally behind Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, whose campaign had collapsed earlier to the point that he’d endorsed someone else. Hong and her radical supporters nonetheless expected to win easily, right up until the point the polls closed.
And then …
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly won the Democratic nomination for governor in this battleground state, upsetting Democratic socialist Francesca Hong and delivering a significant blow to the party’s insurgent far-left flank.
Hong, who led in polls ahead of Tuesday’s primary, had the backing of many progressives and the socialist left. But she lacked support from some of the movement’s top national names.
Boosted by a late endorsement from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Crowley was declared the winner by the Associated Press. With 98% of the expected vote tallied, he led Hong, 39.8% to 39.4%, the AP reported.
The Wall Street Journal drew the obvious connection:
The unexpectedly close race is the latest evidence that an intraparty fight among Democrats is far from over. Last week, Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in a divisive and costly Democratic Senate primary in Michigan that saw progressives claim one of their biggest victories to date.
Yes … about that. El-Sayed blew a double-digit lead tracked by five different pollsters in the final weeks of the campaign as his track record finally came to light. However, El-Sayed had just enough runway to survive the primary contest. Now Michigan Democrats have a radical socialist connected to Islamists running against Mike Rogers in a state Donald Trump won two years ago, and while even more information about El-Sayed’s connections and radicalism continues to emerge.
Hong apparently ran out of runway two days ago. The oppo-research dumps on Hong over the last two weeks turned brutal – although accurate – and it’s clear those didn’t come from Tom Tiffany. Those came from the Democrat Party establishment that desperately wanted to avoid another high-profile socialist nightmare on the November ballot that would act as a piñata for Republicans in every Senate, House, and gubernatorial campaign.
The party got what it wanted, but in the worst possible way. Their rescue of the hapless David Crowley and his own inept campaign will stick in the craw of DSA and progressive activists. The narrowness of the loss makes the establishment intervention even more obvious and (in their minds) egregious. Hong still got over 310,000 votes in the primary, and a significant part of that electorate will walk away and may not come back in time for the November election, in a state where no one wins with dramatic leads, and again, in a state Trump won two years ago. Also, the establishment may have won by beating Hong, but their prize is a candidate who couldn’t run a competent campaign on his own and who only returned when the party co-opted it as a desperate last resort.
Tom Tiffany probably preferred to run against Hong, whose ludicrous track record would have tubed the Democrat ballot from top to bottom. Unlike Rogers, Tiffany didn’t get the best possible outcome with a politically damaged radical as his final opponent. However, Tiffany got the next best thing: a politically damaged incompetent who has almost zero chance of uniting his base after this sorry episode. In contrast, Tiffany got over 95% of the GOP vote last night in a race that barely caused him to break a sweat, allowing Tiffany to prepare for the general election against whomever the Democrats produced. And even without getting on the ballot, Tiffany can still use Hong as a reminder to Wisconsin voters about where the party will eventually pull Crowley, too.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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