Wisconsin Democrats chose a middle path – will it lead to victory in November?

Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, was on course to win the party’s nomination for Wisconsin governor on Wednesday by a clear margin, according to the polls – presaging the latest in an extraordinary wave of leftwing victories across the country, challenging the party’s establishment.

It was not to be. In a photo finish after a messy campaign, David Crowley eked out a win by a few thousand votes over Hong, raising questions over the limits of the progressive movement that has swept through Democratic contests in recent months.

Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, had exited the race in early July, only to re-enter late in the month, with the backing of the outgoing Democratic governor, Tony Evers. The two barnstormed the state, consolidating support from a more moderate chunk of undecided voters, many of whom believed Crowley would more easily win November’s general election over Tom Tiffany, the Republican.

The stakes for the governor’s race are high, both locally and nationally. Tiffany voted against certifying the 2020 election, and Wisconsin is a key part of the presidential electoral map. And Democrats want a governing trifecta after years of a split government so they can enact a more expansive agenda.

Those high stakes resonated with voters in a place where statewide elections are frequently decided by decimal points. Hong was seen as more of a gamble – and it didn’t help that when some voters just started paying attention, they found headlines focused on old tweets aboutcanceling Thanksgiving or defunding the police, putting Hong on the defensive.

“So those were the first things some people learned about her, while the first thing they learned about Crowley was that Governor Evers endorsed him,” said Michael Wagner, the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s journalism school, who researches political communication. “I don’t think it was a huge effect, but it didn’t need to be.”

Crowley, 40, became the first Black person to hold the role of Milwaukee county executive in 2020, just a decade after conservative Scott Walker, who would go on to become governor and dismantle workers’ rights, held the same role.

“Now that this primary has come to a close, allow me to reintroduce myself,” Crowley told a cheering crowd after his win on Wednesday morning. “My name is David Crowley. I am a son of Milwaukee. I’m a community organizer by heart who has just happened to find themselves in the halls of the state capitol building, at the head of Milwaukee county government for the last six years.”

‘We have to take these people seriously’

While the results of a single race should not be overread, Hong’s loss is not an outright rebuke of a growing progressive movement, but more a sign that a democratic socialist can mount a serious race – even in a midwestern swing state. In prior years, she might have finished in third or fourth place, rather than become the clearfrontrunner.

“If folks overlook the growing power of people like Hong supporters, they will be doing a disservice to themselves and to the work ahead,” said Joe Zepecki, the Wisconsin Democratic consultant. “And we have to take these people seriously. We have to find space for them in the pro-democracy movement and in Democratic campaigns. It is the only way to build an enduring majority.”

Hong threw her support behind Crowley on Wednesday morning. She had previously vowed to use the grassroots movement she grew statewide to help whoever won the Democratic nomination. The Democratic gubernatorial candidates had brunch together, in a show of unity. Their work now shifts to November, and defeating Tiffany, who quickly tried to tie Crowley to Hong and her “socialist agenda”.

There were strong paths to victory in a general for both Hong and Crowley, Zepecki said. For Hong, it was turning out younger voters or those disaffected by the Democratic party. For Crowley, it’s more about reachingindependents and moderate Republicans, while bringing in Hong’s enthusiastic primary voters. But the headwinds against Republicans are strong, and Tiffany’s lockstep alignment with the Trump administration will probablyhaunt him on the campaign trail.

Crowley, although backed by figures in the Democratic establishment, has bristled at the suggestion that he is an establishment candidate. “He’s just somebody who’s going to win people over once you meet him in the room,” said Dan Shafer, a Wisconsin journalist who runs the local publication the Recombobulation Area. “And I think once he was actually able to get out and do that a little bit more, he found some real success with it.”

Polls of the race showed Hong with a runaway lead. They failed to detect Crowley’s surge back into the race.

Chaz Nuttycombe, a pollster and executive director of State Navigate, which polled on the Wisconsin race, said he talked to a number of people in the polling industry after polls in Michigan overestimated the margins for Abdul El-Sayed. He said Hong voters were more enthusiastic about responding to the polls, and such a response bias was impossible to correct.

Hong, a democratic socialist, finished half a percentage point away from winning a Democratic primary in a battleground state.

Time will tell whether this was the high-water mark of progressive performance in Wisconsin – or the precursor to a future victory. In neighboring Michigan, El-Sayed’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary for US Senate came eight years after his defeat in the race for state governor.

“This is a minor setback for DSA,” said Robert Lasica, the communications coordinator for the Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America. “But we have a lot of good momentum coming out of this, and we have a lot of good debriefing to do going forward.”

The Madison chapter has seen its numbers grow with Hong’s campaign, and her race was the biggest project it had undertaken, he said. Her razor-thin loss shows that people want “big, significant changes” to the status quo, because it isn’t working for most people, Lasica said.

‘This is going to be a tough fight’

For now, Lasica said, most of Hong’s supporters are likely to support Crowley in the general, knowing the value a Democratic trifecta in state government could bring for material improvements in people’s lives.

Election prognosticators adjusted their ratings after Crowley’s victory. Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved it from a tossuprace to lean Democratic.

Shafer, though, cautioned that the governor’s race will probably be close, as they often are in Wisconsin. “This is going to be a tough fight for David Crowley. It would have been a tough fight for Francesca Hong,” he said. “I get the whole national environment, the generic ballot, polling, all of those different things. But Wisconsin is always going to be a close race in a fall election.”

Crowley was at work on Wednesday morning to define Tiffany as a Maga extremist who did not care about the people of Wisconsin. The framing of the primary election – as between the left and center, or progressives and the establishment – missed the point, he said, as people struggle to afford childcare, run their small businesses and grapple with wages lagging the cost of living.

“From the very first day that I announced this campaign, I said the real threat wasn’t any of my primary opponents,” said Crowley. “The real opponent has always been Tom Tiffany. That remains true today.”

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.