Wisconsin Democrats on Tuesday disregarded the polls and narrowly rejected an avowed socialist as their nominee for governor in the Badger State’s nationally-watched primary election.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who dropped out of the race late only to be coaxed back in by the so-called Democratic Party “establishment,” defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong by razor thin margins.
Per usual, Crowley’s Milwaukee County faced a ballot count delay, a stoppage that dragged out the tally for hours and was once again blamed on “human error.” It’s another in a string of election night messes for Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s most-populated — and election integrity challenged city.
With 98.4 percent of the vote in just before 2 a.m., Crowley led by just four-tenths of a percentage point, or just over 3,000 votes. The New York Times finally called the race for Crowley just before 3 a.m. local time.
‘Best Candidate to Lose the Race’
Crowley’s narrow victory was a stunner, with Hong heading into election day holding a commanding lead in the polls and plenty of pundits calling the time of death on Crowley’s 11th-hour reentry into the race. Reports of the less far-left candidate’s political demise were premature.
The big guns of said establishment were sweating long into the wee hours of the morning, as they watched Crowley hold on to win. It was a near-miss for a party that dreaded the daunting task of running a radical socialist with an inexhaustible supply of crazy tweets and crazier policy positions. The GOP’s candidate, Rep. Tom Tiffany, is a down-to-earth conservative who represents the Northwoods 7th Congressional District that Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously served.
Tiffany cruised to primary win over a challenger who grabbed just 4 1/2 percent of the vote.
Two-term Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who supports many of the same “woke 1.0” policies that Hong has championed, helped resurrect Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s moribund campaign just a few weeks before election day.
“Among other people’s necks who are on the line tonight are Gov. Evers, who went all-in over the last 10 days or so making appearances [for Crowley],” Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming told me Tuesday on the Jason Goch Show in Milwaukee.
Evers earlier this month told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he didn’t think the radical Hong could win in November’s general election. And the governor who fought for moms to be described as “inseminated persons” in state documents, took a subtle shot at the socialist’s ability to govern the state, saying after eight years in office he wants to “leave Wisconsin in good hands when someone else takes over.”
Some of Hong’s most high profile Democratic Socialists of America comrades refused to endorse her. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the godfather of American socialism, and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, busy these days freezing her eggs, both balked at giving their political blessing to Hong.
“You know, it’s the only time that I know that the governor — Tony Evers — the Republican Governors Association and Turning Point USA have ever been on the same page: in thinking that Francesca Hong is the best candidate to lose this race,” Crowley said in an interview last week with Politico at a local tavern in Sheboygan.
‘Cancel Thanksgiving’
In one of the more ridiculous political reinventions since Millard Fillmore jumped on the Know Nothing Party bus in 1856, Hong spent much of the campaign pretending she’s nothing like her social media posts. The radical’s long record of extreme tweets and socialist policy positions have dogged her throughout a Dem Party primary exploding with scandal.
Perhaps Hong’s most cringeworthy flip-flop involved one of America’s most cherished holidays.
“Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621,” the critical race theory-spewing socialist opined on Twitter on Nov. 16, 2020 — in the crux of Covid. “If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women so be it.”
Fearing backlash from Democratic Party voters who haven’t plunged headfirst into the DSA’s radical waters, Hong has awkwardly attempted to distance herself from herself. She no longer wants to cancel Thanksgiving.
“I actually love it,” the shameless gubernatorial candidate recently told Politico.
Hong went all-in on the Black Lives Matter fiery but mostly peaceful movement, demanding policymakers defund — and abolish — the police. She posted the same about federal immigration law enforcement. Hong told supporters that her “perfect world would be a world without prisons,” according to audio obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her “tax the rich” tax-and-spend proposal would hit Wisconsin with the highest personal income tax rate in the nation — higher than the current champion, California — by nearly 4 percentage points. Like fellow socialist, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Hong “wrote a bill to create publicly-owned grocery stores.” She’s an absolute hawk on protecting sex changes for children and “students’ preferred pronouns.”
More Milwaukee Mess
The long wait for election results has become standard operating procedure for Wisconsin elections, mucked up by the latest round of irregularities from Milwaukee election officials.
As ABC Milwaukee affiliate WISN reported, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez “discovered five of the nine flash drives brought to central count had the audit log downloaded and not the results.”
Election officials had to head back to central count in Milwaukee and download the results for a second time from five ballot tabulators. The results were to be “reuploaded” at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Gutierrez told WISN.
Based on the unofficial count, when the final Milwaukee County vote was finally tallied, Crowley had won the county by nearly 2,400 votes.
In other key primary races Tuesday …
‘A Battle for the Soul of America’
Wisconsin’s nationally-watched 3rd Congressional District contest will be a rematch from 2024. Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who identifies as a moderate the same way the fellow formerly known as Tim McBride identifies as a Delaware congresswoman, will face off against two-term incumbent Republican Derrick Van Orden, who beat Cooke by 11,000 votes in their last matchup. The 3rd is one of a handful of races Democrats believe they can knock off in November in their pursuit to take back the House.
“Rebecca Cooke is exactly who the national Democrats wanted, an anointed candidate they know will carry water for the socialists who have taken over their party,” Van Orden said in a press release. “This election is about what kind of country we are going to leave to our children and grandchildren. It is a battle for the soul of America.”
Trump Power
In the race to replace Tiffany, Duffy’s son-in-law Michael Alfonso crushed his competitors, showing again the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Alfonso is the odds-on favorite to win the general in the ruby red district.
The 26-year-old Alfonso entered Tuesday with a sizable lead in the polls over second-place finisher Kevin Hermening, a financial adviser and Marine veteran who was one of the 52 captives in the Iran Hostage Crisis. The four-person primary grew increasingly contentious, with attack ads labeling frontrunner Alfonso a “nepo baby.”
Didn’t matter. Duffy’s son-in-law had the backing of conservative stalwart organizations Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty and members of Wisconsin Republican congressional delegation. But the Trump endorsement proved powerful once again, as the president wracks up an impressive success record this election cycle.
Trump’s Truth Social account was filled Tuesday with celebratory posts of the endorsement wins he collected.
‘Dying to Run Against’
The president’s choice for Republican governor in blue state Minnesota didn’t fare so well. MyPillow peddler Mike Lindell, who built a lead in the polls, lost to State House Speaker Lisa Demuth in the race to replace TDS Democrat and fraud scandal patriarch Gov. Tim Walz. DeMuth also defeated Minnesota businessman Kendall Qualls, who picked up the endorsement of the Minnesota GOP.
DeMuth will face Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who sailed to victory Tuesday for her party’s gubernatorial nomination.
Minnesota Democrats stayed true to their leftward lurch, delivering a primary victory to far-left Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in the Democratic primary for Senate. Flanagan defeated the left-proclaimed “moderate” in the race, Rep. Angie Craig. Craig had the money and the backing of outgoing senator and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Tina Smith, as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders of Vermont — the “establishment.”
Flanagan, who constantly reminded identity politics Democrats that she would be Minnesota’s first “Native woman” to be elected to the U.S. Senate, ingratiated herself with Minnesota’s Somali community when she showed up at a Mosque last December wearing a hijab. It was a gesture of solidarity as federal investigators stepped up investigations into the state’s welfare fraud scandal, which to a significant extent involved members of the Somali community.
Craig argued that “Republicans are dying to run against” Flanagan because she was front and center in the state’s welfare fraud scandal. That didn’t seem to matter to Minnesota Democrats, who chose the lieutenant governor by a wide margin.
The Republican running against her will be former sportscaster Michele Tafoya, who coasted to victory.
South Carolina Runoff Set
In South Carolina’s GOP Senate primary, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darlene Graham, appointed to serve out the rest of his term, will face Rep. Ralph Norman in an Aug. 25 runoff.
Darlene Graham, endorsed by President Trump, won 33 percent of the total vote, while Norman grabbed 25 percent, according to unofficial results as of early Wednesday morning. The packed field of 10 candidates, including Norman, Rep. Russell Fry and former Gov. Mark Sanford.
The winner of the runoff will go up against Democrat Annie Andrews, who won her party’s nomination in June.
