A DSA Candidate Lost a Messy Race for Wisconsin Governor

A Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin, David Crowley, emerged victorious in a contentious race on Tuesday night. Despite Francesca Hong, a progressive aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, holding a significant lead in many polls, Hong ultimately fell short by just 0.5 percentage points, a margin of around 4,000 votes.

Hong's campaign was marked by her outsider status and lack of endorsements from major progressive figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, Ocasio-Cortez distanced herself from Hong's more radical policies on Sunday. Hong faced backlash from both right-wing and some Democratic quarters due to past controversial social media comments, including a deleted post calling for "Cancel Thanksgiving" and advocating for "defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police."

Had Hong won, she would have made history as the first democratic socialist governor in U.S. history.

On the Democratic establishment side, several candidates who were initially seen as frontrunners abandoned their campaigns. Sara Rodriguez, the state's lieutenant governor, suspended her run mid-July after firing her campaign manager for inflating financial reports. Even Crowley, the eventual winner, re-entered the race shortly after Rodriguez's withdrawal, initially suspending his campaign in early July due to poor polling numbers.

This race, unlike others where progressive candidates have triumphed, like Abdul El-Sayed's Senate primary win in Michigan, proved to be a messier affair, potentially offering fewer insights into the trajectory of progressive candidates running under the Democratic banner.