Author: Nathan Steagall

“The absence of endorsements from AOC and Sanders was a bit of a warning sign because they had in fact been involved in state-level races elsewhere. Their backing would have given Hong more legitimacy as a candidate and made her platform seem more grounded,” UW-Madison Political Science Professor Barry Burden said in an email.

While much attention has been given to a gubernatorial race that turned rapidly from sleepy to tumultuous in its final weeks, Democrats emerged from Tuesday’s nailbiter primary election with a continued focus on flipping enough legislative seats to wield political power they’ve lacked for more than 15 years in Wisconsin.

Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary win by David Crowley was a big surprise.

The Milwaukee County Executive narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong. Crowley will face Republican Tom Tiffany Nov. 3.

Hong had a groundswell of grassroots support, while Crowley dropped out of the race in July. At that time, Crowley was behind in the polls.

He jumped back in a week later, after Sara Rodriguez dropped out due financial mismanagement by a campaign staffer.

UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden spoke with WUWM’s Ann-Elise Henzl about Crowley’s turnaround.

Hong caught flak from national media about years-old social media posts about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving. Some of the posts were dredged up by Republicans, UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said, as part of their strategy to define Hong as being too liberal. It might have backfired, Burden added, giving moderate voters a reason to look elsewhere and prevent Hong from being their nominee.

Kathy Cramer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Mr. Evers’s influence — even if it came near the end of a long campaign — could have turned voters away from Ms. Hong and toward Mr. Crowley.

“It could just be that there are lots of Democrats who just have an affinity for the guy,” she said of Mr. Evers, who has served two terms as governor. “That could have weighed heavily on their vote.”

Tessa Conroy, associate professor of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an economic development specialist with UW Extension, told “Wisconsin Today” that rural communities “have been worried about this for a long time.”

“What happens in the gubernatorial primary could have both short-term and long-term consequences for Democrats in Wisconsin and even nationally,” Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center, said.

In Wisconsin, a progressive gubernatorial candidate is polling far ahead of the other candidates before the battleground state’s Democratic primary next week.

That was the story in Michigan, too: Polls showed Abdul El-Sayed handily beating Rep. Haley Stevens ahead of Tuesday’s Senate primary — but he had barely edged out a victory by the time the race was called the next morning. Now, some Democrats wonder if the same will come to pass in Wisconsin, where polling has shown state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, leading her opponents by double-digit margins for weeks.