On the Ballot: What went wrong for Hong in Wisconsin?  

Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor this week, defying expectations and dealing a blow to progressives in the Midwest.

Polls had shown Hong with a substantial lead heading into Tuesday night’s election, but Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley — who had exited the race last month only to reenter 10 days later with Gov. Tony Evers’s (D) endorsement — surged to a razor-thin win for the Democratic establishment.

The primary served as another test of direction for a divided Democratic Party, but the unexpected results leave more questions than answers. It’s also a fumble for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the far-left movement that had looked to Wisconsin to gain ground outside of the urban blue areas where they’ve notched wins so far this cycle.

If there’s one thing that observers agree on, however, it’s that the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary had no shortage of twists and bizarre turns.

“This is the craziest primary election I have ever even heard tell of, much less watched up-close,” said Wisconsin Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki.

“Fifty years from now, there will be some campaign somewhere on planet Earth where the polls have you down 20 plus points, and some old guy in a back room will call the staff together and say, ‘Kids, let me tell you about the David Crowley comeback.’”

Hong haunted by past posts

Hong, a 37-year-old chef and state lawmaker, led Crowley by more than 20 points in Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) averages as voters headed to the polls.

But when the race was called after midnight on Wednesday, Crowley eked out a win with 39.83 percent of the vote to Hong’s 39.35 percent, according to DDHQ tallies.

“I think it is impossible to ignore the fact that Hong may have just shot herself in the foot with her national TV rounds over the last couple weeks of the campaign, and that becoming the story,” said DDHQ chief elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley. “I think she maybe she wasn’t, sort of, ready for primetime.”

In the run-up to the primary, Hong was hounded by scrutiny over some of her old social media posts, including calls to “defund the police” and “cancel Thanksgiving.” She walked back the remarks, but the chatter added fuel to some Democrats’ fears that she and other far-left candidates could help Republicans paint the party at large as too extreme.

Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager on former Vice President Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, credited the state lawmaker for having “mobilized and inspired people, built momentum, picked smart issues to differentiate herself” in a post on the social platform X.

But he also noted that Hong’s social media controversy cost her some votes in the end, adding that “the combination of the old tweets and the not-quite-running-away-from-the-old-tweets set off the ‘she can’t win alarms’ that still motivate dem voters. Aperture on who dem primary voters is wider, but it has its limits…”

More polls, more problems

The gulf between the pre-primary polls showing Hong well ahead and the election night results that put her a hair behind Crowley have sparked questions about what pollsters and other election observers missed in the numbers.

Pollster Nate Silver floated in a post on X that some Democratic primary polls were “missing a lot of working-class, ‘less online’ (but by no means necessarily white) voters.”

He and other analysts also suggested that the race’s late shift from a multi-candidate contest to what was effectively a two-way race between Hong and Crowley made polling more difficult. The race winnowed after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) both ended their bids in July, and Crowley briefly suspended his bid the same month.

Skelley also pointed out that primary polls are more prone to error than those for a general election, especially in a state like Wisconsin, where voters don’t need to register to participate in the primaries.

“We know that polling, for the last couple of cycles, has been a little hit-or-miss,” Zepecki added,

The strategist pointed to Michigan, where polls had overestimated how well Democrat Abdul El-Sayed would perform in the Senate primary.

“There is always higher variance in primaries than in general elections because this country and this state are so polarized by partisanship. … It doesn’t mean that polling doesn’t have value, but how many times have you heard a pollster say these are all snapshots in time?” Zepecki said. “Also, maybe this is a one-off. When’s the last time you saw a poll off by 20?”

Strong progressive turnout wasn’t enough

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — the most high-profile and prominent........

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