With 50 days to go until the August 11th Democrat gubernatorial primary, my McCoshen Power Rankings show there are three candidates with a shot to advance. The only things that can change the current dynamic are a direct battle between Mandela Barnes and Francesca Hong (for those who know the history, think Moody v. Chechota in 1992 with Russ Feingold as the beneficiary) or an orchestrated coalescing of the Democrat establishment behind someone other than Barnes or Hong in the race. The closest precedent for the latter is Mandela Barnes clearing the field in the 2022 US Senate race with less than two weeks to go, but I’ll come back to that later.
Here are the current power rankings. Hang around for the details on the backside.
- Francesca Hong
- Mandela Barnes
- Sara Rodriquez
- Kelda Roys (the biggest mover from the 75 day ranking)
- David Crowley
- Joel Brennan
- Missy Hughes
It’s important to note two significant data points that will be public in the next few weeks could impact the 25 day power rankings: a new Marquette Law School statewide poll, and the finance reports for each candidate. But this is the state of the race, today.
Tier 1: Francesca Hong and Mandela Barnes
Francesca Hong was within the margin of error of Mandela Barnes on a statewide poll conducted by Sara Rodriquez’s campaign that was released last week. Barnes led Hong 26% to 22%. Rodriquez released the poll to generate momentum for herself heading into the Democratic state convention. She released a poll showing her in third because it showed her as the only other viable candidate at 15 percent. Her strategy worked.
Rodriquez won the straw poll conducted by WisPolitics at the Democratic state convention.
Here’s some news: there is another more recent GOP statewide poll that is not public which shows Hong tied with Barnes at 26%.
The bottom line is the Barnes campaign has stalled and Hong’s continues to grow. Barnes’ biggest challenge is trying to overcome the belief held by many Democrats that he blew a winnable US Senate race in 2022. Last week, Barnes blamed national Democrats for “abandoning his campaign.”
To be clear, it was the most expensive US Senate race in Wisconsin history. National Democrats spent more than $25 million defining Ron Johnson between January of 2022 and the August primaries. The first post-primary poll in 2022 had Barnes leading Johnson by 8%. Yet, by mid-September, Johnson was tied and had the momentum.
Hong could win the primary. That’s remarkable because she would have been considered a fringe candidate in 2018 when Tony Evers easily won the Democrat nomination. But the Democrat party nationally and locally has shifted left in recent years. Hong has also run the best campaign so far.
She has three key attributes going for her:
- Authentic – Hong is who she is and makes no apology for far left policy positions. The F-bombs aren’t an act. That’s who she is. Keeping it real, as they say.
- Organic – Her support is self-made. Hong had more than 7,500 donors on her last report. Those people are all personally invested in her campaign. Pay more attention to the total number of donors on her July report than how much she raised. She won’t need as much as others to win. The Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) are highly organized and well funded. She has the Bernie Bros, too. And her people show up – at everything. And now she has BLOC in Milwaukee.
- Compelling – Hong has bold, far left policy positions that energize enough voters in the Democratic base to win a seven-way primary. Nobody can get to the left of her so she owns the Progressive lane in the primary. Some say she has a high floor but a low ceiling. Well, 28% – 30% will likely be enough to win the Democratic primary in 50 days.. Frankly, if Barnes’ campaign continues to erode support, his voters are most likely to go to Hong because he’s the second most Progressive candidate in the race. That’s a big problem for everyone else in the race.
It’s no coincidence these key attributes spell AOC…
Barnes is still in the game based on name ID he built during his expensive 2022 US Senate loss. However, he as had this massive name ID advantage from Day 1, but has not been able to maximize it and put the field away. In fact, it may be working against him. He’s not the fresh face for Democrats and he “had his turn.”
The real question is whether Barnes goes after Hong in the final 50 days. That’s very risky and could easily backfire on him and propel Hong to a comfortable primary victory. The opposition research “hits” on Hong to date have helped her. Highlighting Hong’s extremely left policy positions helps her with motivated primary voters and attacking her for things like not paying a credit card bill humanizes her with an even broader audience.
Recall from my previous posts that there will be roughly 500,000 votes in the Democrat gubernatorial primary. Between 33% and 34% of those votes will come from Dane and Milwaukee County. Hong is positioned to win Dane County, possibly by a considerable margin. Milwaukee County could be split multiple ways. Hong picked up a key primary endorsement from BLOC that will help her in Milwaukee County. Key business leaders say most of the Milwaukee business community money has gone to Crowley and Hughes so far with a token amount to Brennan. These businesses will need to deal with Crowley as County Executive regardless of the primary outcome.
Tier 2: Sara Rodriquez
Rodriquez is in a solid third place position and is getting close to striking distance. She is best positioned to capitalize if there is a Barnes v. Hong battle that hurts both of them. But she will need to contrast herself with each of them in order to move into the top spot. To be clear, the notion Rodriquez can run a fully positive campaign and come out on top on August 11th is fantasy. But she’s in a spot to potentially win if in the next 50 days supporters of the rest of the field coalesce behind her as the best alternative to Barnes or Hong .
It’s easy to see how Rodriquez overtakes Barnes and moves into second, it’s much harder to see how she overtakes Hong because she cannot get to the left of her. Milwaukee author Dan Shafer released the Rodriquez poll last week in his Recombobulation Area for a reason. He also has a strong column evaluating each Democrat gubernatorial campaign.
Tier 3: Kelda Roys
Kelda Roys moved up to the 4th spot on my ranking. She’s on the air with a $500,000 buy and has the WEAC endorsement. She says her strategy will take votes away from Rodriquez. That’s fine if your want to be in 3rd place. But she’ll need to do a lot more to have any shot to win the primary.
For example, the Rodriquez poll had Roys at 5% with 18% undecided. The math doesn’t get Roys to the front of the pack without sharp contrast with Barnes and Hong, and that math assumes Roys gets all the undecideds – which she won’t.
The question for Roys is whether she is playing to win the primary or playing to build name statewide name ID and a political base for a yet another run in the future. Her current strategy suggests the latter. Roys is a long shot at best and needs considerable help her campaign does not control to seriously contend for the primary. If Rodriquez attacks the front runners and fails, Roys could move up to 3rd.
The Rest: David Crowley, Joel Brennan, Missy Hughes
Crowley, Brennan and Hughes are likely hanging on until the statewide debate televised by WISN on July 28th. Anyone who does all the work to get on the ballot to run for governor wants their “moment.” Their staff and consultants are telling them they still have a shot. They just need to get up on the air and be on that debate stage.
None of them have a shot at this point and the only a question is if they simply lose gracefully or publicly endorse someone else.
The key question to consider when looking at each of the seven campaigns is whether each candidate is actually playing to win.
It’s actually very simple to tell. Look back on the 2022 Democrat US Senate primary. Alex Lasry, Sarah Godlewski, and Thomas Nelson all tried to run positive campaigns. A few weeks from the primary they each realized they couldn’t win with that strategy (Nelson says he ran out of money), and they would have to go negative on Barnes to win. They all chose to stop campaigning. Once you are on the ballot in Wisconsin there is no such thing as dropping out. Your name will be on the ballot. Maybe there was a backroom deal cut in 2022, or maybe these candidates all simultaneously realized it wasn’t their time. But none of them were willing to do what they had to do to win.
Watch every candidate not named Barnes or Hong over the next several weeks and consider that question.
To date, nearly all of the candidates have been retail campaigning at small events. That’s hard to build name ID in a state as vast a Wisconsin. Now they are shifting to wholesale campaigning using paid media. Name ID comes quicker, but many may have missed the opportunity to move up by waiting too long to buy name ID. To stand out, a candidate would need a compelling message that causes Democrat primary voters to say, that’s our candidate!
Not an easy task if you are running ads with the same talking points as the others.
The next 25 days will be crucial for Hong, Barnes, Rodriquez and Roys. Who will make the right strategic moves to best position themselves for the final push?
Stay tuned!
I’ll be back in 25 days.
Previously in Dairyland Sentinel
