National Review Online
Wednesday, August 12, 2026
It turns out even Democratic primary voters have their
limits.
Despite multiple polls showing Democratic Socialist
Francesca Hong with a double-digit lead, she managed to lose Tuesday’s primary
for Wisconsin governor to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who had
been so far behind he actually suspended his campaign last month. Crowley will
now face off against Representative Tom Tiffany (who ran unopposed in the GOP
primary) in November for the chance to lead the state for the next four years.
Hong is 37 years old, a former failed chef, and currently
assembly representative for Madison, the state capital — a political
environment infamous for the out-of-touch extremism of its leftism. It is
difficult to convey just how robotically Hong publicly committed herself to her
ideology over the years — the most obvious example being her recent inability
to decide whether or not she still wanted to “Cancel Thanksgiving,” because settler-colonialism is still
“very painful for many people in our communities.” Throughout her elected
career, Hong made her views on crime well-known: “Police exist to uphold white
supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.”
As Hong surged in polls, panic set in among Democrats
that they could squander a crucial race. In a desperate gambit, incumbent
Democratic Governor Tony Evers, a two-termer who chose to retire, endorsed and campaigned with Crowley, bluntly telling
reporters (multiple times) that he did not think Hong could win in
November.
His bet paid off.
While Crowley is no moderate (he has called for expanding Medicaid in the state to allow people above the
income threshold to buy into it, and co-sponsored legislation declaring abortion a form of health care), he is much more
of a standard-issue Wisconsin Democrat than Hong would have been.
Interestingly, this represents the second polling miss of
the month in the Midwest — in the Michigan Senate race, Abdul El-Sayed was
expected to crush Representative Haley Stevens, only to barely hang on.
Perhaps the strength of the Democratic Socialists has
been greatly exaggerated.
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