Dem Primary Recap
I made a semi-bold prediction on August 1st that Francesca Hong would win the Democratic gubernatorial primary. I was wrong. I was in good company with some seasoned politicos, current and former conservative talk radio hosts, and one of Hong’s main opponents throughout the primary, Mandela Barnes. When Barnes suspended his gubernatorial campaign on July 30th, he said, “It’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be…”
They, too, predicted a Hong victory, but that does not make me feel any better.
I’m extremely competitive and I do not like to lose or be wrong. I spent considerable time going back and reviewing my assumptions to help readers understand how I got to my final prediction and what changed in the final days to impact the outcome.
Musical Chairs
Wisconsin witnessed the most bizarre primary ever. Multiple candidates suspended their campaign in July after the official filing deadline to appear on the ballot; and one candidate got out and then back in. The latter has never occurred in Wisconsin politics. The former did occur during the 2022 Democrat US Senate primary when all the candidates except Mandela Barnes suspended their campaign in the final two weeks of the primary.
On July 7th, David Crowley suspended his gubernatorial campaign saying, “It has become clear that I will not be the Democratic nominee for Governor, so today I am stepping out of this race, but I am not stepping away from the work.” The next day, Crowley endorsed Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez for the Democratic nomination.
On July 17th, Sara Rodriguez suspended her gubernatorial campaign citing problems with her campaign finance reports. The problems were uncovered earlier in the week, and it initially appeared Rodriguez would stay in the race and work to overcome the negative press. By the end of the week, staying in the race was no longer a viable option for her. Democrats were looking for a moderate alternative to Hong they could all rally around and it looked like Rodriguez was going to be the one. Poor staffing and financial mismanagement doomed her campaign. Don’t be surprised if there are criminal charges filed against Rodriguez’s campaign manager.
On July 18th, David Crowley reentered the gubernatorial race for the Democratic nomination and announced the endorsement by Governor Tony Evers. There were 24 days remaining in the primary. This was unprecedented in Wisconsin politics. Every star needed to line up perfectly for Crowley to win because of the commanding lead Hong held at that point. The Democrat establishment wanted a one-on-one matchup between Hong and Crowley. That did not happen. Barnes refused to drop out initially and made it clear he was not happy with the Governor’s involvement in the primary.
Kelda Roys staying in the race until the end helped Crowley because she cut into Hong’s margin in Dane County.
Unforced Errors
On July 23, 2026, Francesca Hong used a bullhorn to address protesters in her legislative district following an officer-involved shooting in Madison. She said, “This state-sanctioned violence was an execution.” Every other major statewide political figure (including the Democratic governor and attorney general, a U.S. senator, and the local member of Congress) called for calm and urged protesters to wait for the investigation before drawing conclusions. Hong was a clear outlier. I called it the first major mistake of her campaign but believed it would hurt her in the primary only if an opponent used it against her. None did. To be fair, this mistake would have been a massive problem in the general election because it made her look radical and unhinged in crisis. Voters want their governor to be measured in crisis.
After the only televised statewide debate, held on WISN on July 28th, Hong appeared to have the race secured. Her opponents failed to land a meaningful blow, and she led every officially released poll up to that point (more later). Although Kelda Roys arguably “won” the debate, she was never a serious contender for the nomination. She did, however, play spoiler in Dane County. Hong won her home county by only 8%, despite expectations, including mine, of a double-digit victory. In the debate, Hong simply needed to avoid making mistakes. She did. From then on, she should have followed a “Biden” strategy: remain out of public view except for a few get-out-the-vote events during the final weekend. The race was hers to lose, and unforced errors cost her.
It is not clear if the Hong team got cocky after the debate or if their inexperience in statewide races was finally exposed. It is also possible that Hong and her team were struggling with the possibility of winning the primary. There was a noticeable unease by Hong and her campaign down the stretch. The lights were getting brighter and they were not prepared for it. The best possible solution was risk mitigation through lower visibility. Instead, they turned up the lights.
Something changed with Barnes after the WISN debate. His debate performance was lackluster, and he never attacked the frontrunner, Hong. But two days after the debate, Barnes suspended his campaign on July 30th. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a story about consensual sexual relations Barnes had with a party volunteer, but he could have survived this attack, if that is all there was to it. As soon as Barnes dropped out, the story went away. This was a major break for the Crowley campaign. Although Barnes’ name would still appear on the primary ballot, he would no longer be competing for the nomination.
On Friday July 31, Hong consciously decided to go on Fox News morning program, America’s Newsroom, with Dana Perino. From a campaign strategy standpoint, this was all risky and no potential reward. Hong looked unprepared and gave bizarre answers related to prior tweets about cancelling Thanksgiving that developed “legs.” The Fox News interview was a mistake. The entire Fox News enterprise was replaying the interview nonstop for days.
On Monday August 3rd, eight days before the Democrat primary, Hong and her team decided to try and clean up the Fox News interview on a more friendly CNN program called The Source with Kaitlan Collins. Frankly, this interview was worse than the one with Dana Perino. Collins asked direct, but fair questions, and the answers were brutal. By this point, the notion of cancelling Thanksgiving was now a national story and had become part of Hong’s brand in an unbelievably bad way.
The one thing that worked very well for Hong for all the primary campaign was her authenticity. She was a proud Democrat Socialist, but that was not enough to gain the support of Socialist icons Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). On Wednesday, August 5th, Hong made one final attempt to change the subject from cancelling Thanksgiving in a Politico interview with Irie Sentner. Hong did a complete flip-flop and said, “I love Thanksgiving, it’s my favorite holiday.” That blew her authenticity to pieces. Now she was just another politician who would say anything to get elected. By now, Hong’s campaign has stalled out. The polling you are about to see confirms her campaign stalled out. There was no further momentum. The question was, could any of her opponents still catch up to her in the final days of the race?
Hong was not done making unforced errors, however. She invited far left streamer Hasan Piker and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to come campaign with her on Sunday, August 9th. Both are highly controversial figures and not the message you want to send to undecided or moderate voters in the final days before the election. A smart campaign would have been moving to the middle by this point preparing for the general election. Instead, Hong was moving further to the left as her closing argument.
All these mistakes in the final two weeks were choices by the Hong campaign. They did not have to make any of them. And they cost Hong dearly. The primary was her race to lose, and she did.
Hong did an interview with WISN political director Matt Smith recently and was asked about some of the unforced errors. She said she regrets doing the CNN interview and never wanted to cancel Thanksgiving. She also said too much was made about Hasan Piker supporting her at the end of the primary.
Tony steps up
The other major factor in the Crowley comeback was Governor Tony Evers’ staunch support. The final Marquette polls showed his endorsement of Crowley would impact 36% of Democrat primary voters. Clearly not enough to catch up with Hong. But Evers aggressively campaigned for Crowley in the final week of the campaign across the state. He put his legacy on the line to get Crowley over the finish line. Evers was also the only person who confidently predicted a Crowley primary win. He was asked at the State Fair if he would campaign with Hong if she won the primary. He did not hesitate and said, “that’s not going to happen.” Nobody else was that bold. Nobody.
Evers also predicted a huge turnout in the primary. He expected overall Democrat turnout to double from the average of 520,000 in the previous two midterm Democratic primaries. Evers was right about a spike in turnout as it increased to 793,000 for Democrats, but he was wrong on the size of increase. But there is little doubt the increase in turnout was also a key to the Crowley victory.
Crowley also had help from Democrat or Democrat-leaning groups to spend $4 million in the final week of the campaign. Crowley had the airwaves mostly to himself, which was another Hong mistake. But the ads were effective in helping previously undecided Democrats choose him as the moderate alternative to Hong.
Polling
Polling in primary races is tough. It is not easy to determine which voters will show up, and many times voters only have a modest awareness of the candidates in the race in early August. There were several officially released polls in July and one in August:
- July 20 — Impact Research (Barnes internal):** Hong 39, Barnes 26, Crowley 11, Undecided 11
- July 20 — Wedgewood:** Hong 38, Barnes 30, Crowley 9, Undecided 23
- July 22 — Marquette Law (no Crowley):** Hong 26, Barnes 15, Rodriguez 11, Undecided 45
- July 22 — PPP (Crowley internal):** Hong 35, Barnes 15, Crowley 14, Undecided 26
- July 28 — State Navigate:** Hong 44, Crowley 15, Barnes 14, Undecided 19
- July 29 — Marquette Law:** Hong 38, Barnes 16, Crowley 7, Undecided 34
- August 7 — State Navigate:** Hong 44, Crowley 22, Undecided 12
It should be noted that State Navigate did a self-analysis of their final Wisconsin Democrat primary poll and graded themselves as an F. To their credit, they did pick up some late Crowley movement but still had him down 22 points with three days to go. Impact Research, Wedgewood, and the final Marquette Law School poll had Hong’s ballot correct. But nobody truly saw the late surge for Crowley that would put him over the top.
The Crowley comeback is unprecedented in Wisconsin, and the nation. You cannot find another statewide candidate anywhere (gubernatorial or US Senate) who came back from at least 20 points down in the final week to win the primary, according to ChatGPT. Some on the left complain that the race was stolen from Hong by the “establishment.” That is wishful thinking on their part. Hong blew it, and the Crowley/Evers teams executed the final 10 days (about 1 and a half weeks) to perfection.
My original prediction was spot on the day I made it. What I failed to do was adjust the prediction after Hong started making so many major unforced errors down the stretch. I also underestimated Governor Evers’ ability to motivate Democrat primary voters to turn out in record numbers and support the guy he endorsed. There was a 53% increase in Democrat turnout on August 11th. Evers still has his political fastball!
Crowley won the primary by less than 3800 votes out of 793,000 cast. Hong immediately conceded rather than ask for a recount; which she was eligible for because the margin was less than .5%. She would have had to pay for the recount because it was more than .25%.
Using the final Marquette poll as the benchmark (they had Hong’s ballot on the bullseye), they said there were 34% of Democrats undecided. Crowley needed to get 95% of the undecided Democrats to beat Hong. He did. I have never seen that happen in Wisconsin politics. Typically, undecided voters break 2.5:1 or 3:1 to the challenger or Crowley in this case. And the final Marquette poll said 22% of their undecided cohort was leaning toward Hong. That clearly changed before Democrats cast their ballots, or Hong wins.
Debates
Too much has been made about how many debates the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates will have. Crowley and Tiffany have agreed to a single debate on WISN with Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan. Matt and Gerron did a superb job on the Democrat primary debate and will get the most out of their time with David Crowley and Tom Tiffany on October 21st. If I were preparing either of the candidates, I would tell them to spend most of their time on their weakest points because Matt and Gerron will hit them hard with the toughest questions early and often. They may both wish they wore a helmet to the debate because their likelihood of being concussed by the moderators is high! One, high-stakes, gubernatorial debate is plenty. We will also see for ourselves in a few weeks.
Tomorrow: The State of the Race
Previously on Dairyland Sentinel
