Wisconsin races are notoriously close, but Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor was too close for comfort.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley beat zany socialist Francesca Hong by about 3,800 votes out of 792,000 ballots cast. Hong led by more than 20 points in polling two weeks ago, but the gap tightened as normal Democrats rallied behind the electable moderate.
Crowley’s come-from-behind win was attributable to the wisdom of Democrats who are older, African American and live in rural areas. They will continue to be the bulwark against a left that is rooted in university towns and fueled by younger, over-credentialed activists who resent that they don’t have the same opportunities their parents had.
The narrative of this primary season has been the ascendancy of the Democratic Socialists of America, but Wisconsin underscores how the DSA’s fringe ideas and candidates can still be defeated if the Democratic establishment offers an alternative and shows backbone.
That’s what outgoing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers did in Wisconsin. He sounded the alarm that Hong would lose in the general election to Tom Tiffany, a GOP congressman. Crowley is now the favorite in the fall.
The DSA’s victories have almost entirely come in solidly blue bastions, from the mayor’s race in D.C. to congressional primaries in Denver and New York City.
Abdul El-Sayed is an acolyte of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, but he is not affiliated with the DSA. Like Hong, El-Sayed significantly underperformed pre-election polling in the Michigan Democratic primary last week. But he eked out a win.
Partly that’s because El-Sayed is much smoother and more charismatic than Hong. She gave bumbling answers during the final debate and struggled to explain away bizarre social media posts. Asked about a 2020 tweet, “Cancel Thanksgiving,” she said last week that it’s now her “favorite holiday.”
Hong was such a flawed candidate that Democrats from the party’s governing wing would be foolish to read too much into Tuesday’s results. They continue to face spirited challenges from emboldened radicals who remain determined to take over the party and pick the presidential nominee in 2028.
Trying to accommodate the DSA, and co-opt the energy of its activists, won’t work any better for Democrats than it did for the Republican establishment when Donald Trump came down the golden escalator.
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