The debate over Democrats’ future rages on after Hong’s defeat in Wisconsin

Francesca Hong, a Wisconsin state assemblywoman and Democratic candidate for governor, addresses supporters at her primary election night watch party in Madison, Wis., on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. Hong was supposed to prove that a democratic socialist could win a statewide election. Instead, her surprise loss in the primary election for governor of Wisconsin dealt a blow to the progressive movement and initiated a scramble among Democratic factions to define her narrow defeat either as an impressive harbinger of the movement’s future or an ominous sign of voter antipathy toward the far left. (Jamie Kelter Davis/The New York Times)

By EMILY DAVIES and KELLEN BROWNING

Francesca Hong was supposed to prove that a democratic socialist could win a statewide election.

Instead, her surprise loss in the primary election for governor of Wisconsin dealt a blow to the progressive movement and initiated a scramble among Democratic factions to define her narrow defeat either as an impressive harbinger of the movement’s future or an ominous sign of voter antipathy toward the far left.

Some prominent Democrats argued that the outcome was proof that the moderate wing of the party carried more electoral weight than the progressive one, which has dominated headlines this year as insurgent candidates have ousted incumbents in deep-blue cities.

Others, on the left, looked to celebrate the tight race — even though their candidate fell short — as evidence that progressives can compete in statewide contests.

“It’s a significant loss,” Robert Lasica, a spokesperson for Madison’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter, said in an interview. But he argued the race was also “a big triumph of how far we can go with building the left infrastructure in Wisconsin that simply did not exist a year ago.”

David Crowley, who is the Milwaukee County executive and had briefly suspended his campaign just over a month ago, defeated Hong by a razor-thin margin. His victory defied months of polls that showed Hong far in the lead.

It was the second consecutive week with a Democratic primary in which a progressive candidate underperformed expectations. Last week in the Democratic Senate race in Michigan, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens, but the contest was closer than expected and was not called until the next morning. Both narrow outcomes have kept the debate that has been raging all year between moderates and progressives vigorously alive.

El-Sayed is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the DSA is not officially part of the Democratic Party. But both the DSA and non-DSA progressives have roiled the party in this year’s midterms by exciting the left flank of the party’s base.

Some in the party hoped to export aspects of Hong’s success to other campaigns, notably her ground game. The former chef and restaurateur spent more time than any other candidate campaigning in rural Wisconsin, and it appeared to pay off with strong margins in some of those counties. Progressives have won a string of races partly on the strength of their ground games. The question is whether the model can be replicated without the populist policy proposals, such as abolishing ICE, that are resonating with some voters but that many moderates eschew.

The fallout of Hong’s campaign carries extra weight as the party eyes 2028, with those in each wing already jockeying to elevate their own. On Wednesday, Democrats openly exploring presidential bids sought to wield the election results to make their cases.

Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, wrote on social media that Hong’s defeat showed “that the pragmatic wing isn’t a faction of this party. It’s the majority, it’s awake now, and it’s exerting itself.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive member of Congress from California who had endorsed Hong and is also contemplating a run for president, sought to tamp down criticism of the far left.

“I appreciate that Democrats can have differences over single payer healthcare, free childcare, pausing data centers and other issues @FrancescaHongWI fought for,” he wrote on X. “But caricaturing and labeling candidates based on a few statements is not a politics I believe in.”

Democratic socialists had seen Wisconsin as a key opportunity to prove that their message could resonate in less liberal parts of the country. While they planned to study Hong’s loss to improve their electoral fortunes, several said they viewed Tuesday’s result as strong proof of the movement’s rise.

“Francesa won hundreds of thousands of votes — one of the highest vote totals of a democratic socialist candidate in any election in the United States,” said Katie Sims, a DSA member in Ithaca, New York, who leads the group’s national electoral strategy. “Ultimately, it’s disappointing that she lost by such a small margin, but really heartening that it shows that these kinds of races are viable.”

DSA members pointed to several areas for improvement. For one, the socialist infrastructure and campaign experience in Wisconsin was far less robust than in places such as New York City, which last fall elected Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, to be mayor. There, socialists had been building for years toward that victory as well as additional successes in congressional campaigns in June.

“For some people on the campaign, they have not worked at this scale yet before under these pressures,” Lasica said. “Next time around, we’re going to be in a better position.”