Wisconsin is the latest test for progressives, the electability argument and, soon, party unity
In 2008, political consultant David Axelrod ran a first-time senator from Illinois to the left of Hillary Clinton, captured the Democratic Party nomination, and the White House, twice. Last week, Axelrod wrote on X that, “It would be good,” for the party’s new progressive U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan if a like-minded progressive candidate in Wisconsin “loses.”
The one in Michigan, former public health official Abdul El-Sayed and self-described “capitalist” is, Axelrod wrote, “a serious person.”
The one in Wisconsin, state legislator and self-described “proud” Democratic socialist Francesca Hong, who once said she wanted to “cancel” Thanksgiving, is, according to Axelrod, “a font of zany liberal, faculty lounge exotica.” To conclude, Axelrod warned that Republicans “would surely try and link Abdul and Hong as philosophical kin.”
Hong, who leads the primary by more than 20 percentage points, shot back, calling the analysis a “perfect example of why the consultant class keeps losing elections.” Then Hong, who kept bartending since getting elected to the legislature in 2020, invited Axelrod to join her working a “Friday night dinner rush.”
Axelrod, who left the White House more than a decade ago and founded the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, did not respond to Hong’s message or an email from Straight Arrow seeking comment.
Republican money raises the profile of a DSA candidate
After Axelrod and Hong traded barbs earlier in the day last week, Axelrod returned to social media to argue his point about Hong’s electability, this time, apparently, with receipts.
Republicans are pouring money into the race on ads that are essentially raising her profile ahead of the Aug. 11 primary, he said. “They don’t fear her as a candidate. They WANT her to WIN!” he wrote.
According to campaign spending records reviewed by Straight Arrow, Right Direction Wisconsin PAC has spent nearly $3.6 million on ads. Some of the ads were aired in Madison and Milwaukee, key markets in the Democratic primary, WisPolitics reported earlier. On YouTube, Right Direction Wisconsin’s videos calling Hong “too liberal” have more than 8 million views.
Political parties for years have meddled in an opposing party’s primary, hoping to boost a candidate it considers unelectable in the general election. But Hong is also being promoted by nearly $1.3 million of television and billboard ads, by a group called Middle Class Priorities, according to campaign spending records. The group has received money from only one donor, “Progressive Prosperity Caucus, LLC” and it has paid only one vendor: “Progressive Collective LLC.”
An email sent to Middle Class Priorities was not immediately returned.
Hong’s nearest primary rival is Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, whom the retiring Democratic governor Tony Evers has endorsed.
Eddie Vale, a spokesman for Hong’s nearest rival, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, echoed Axelrod’s argument.
In an email to Straight Arrow, Vale wrote that the Republican spending now on ads about Hong is proof the GOP is “trying to meddle in the Democratic primary to pick her as their opponent. It’s probably the only time you will ever see Governor Evers, the RGA [Republican Governor’s Association], and Turning Points [sic] USA all agree that she is the easiest candidate to beat.”
Race for governor
Since Gov. Tony Evers announced last year that he would not seek a third term, the Democratic Party establishment in his state has tried rallying around a candidate.
Early last month, Crowley ended his race on July 8, saying at the time that “It has become clear that I will not be the Democratic nominee.” But he reentered the race on July 18, one day after another leading candidate, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, suspended her campaign, “citing her campaign’s mishandling of financial reports,” Politico reported.
The state’s former lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, ended his campaign on July 31, saying in a video just days before the primary, “it’s become very clear who our nominee is going to be.” NBC News noted at the time that Barnes’ withdrawal is “a clear nod” to the dominant position of Hong, “who has expanded her polling lead.”
Although Hong was endorsed by the DSA chapter in Madison, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., whose two unsuccessful runs for president inspired the movement, said he did not plan to endorse a candidate in that race.
The debate
Whether the warring factions within the party can unite in time for the primary is unclear.
Prominent figures in the Democratic Party have long said their more progressive colleagues could not win competitive elections where voters have historically toggled between the two major parties. Progressives, in response, have complained that establishment figures are, essentially, Republican-lite and do not give a reason for disaffected voters to show up.
But there have been efforts to mend the rift. Former president Barack Obama spoke recently with Abdul El-Sayed, The New York Times reported. And just days after El-Sayed’s primary victory, the establishment-preferred candidate he defeated, Rep. Haley Stevens, endorsed him.
But not everyone unites so quickly.
Axelrod had a first-hand look at the difficulties Democrats sometimes face after a divisive primary between his candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Diehard Hillary Clinton supporters who still refuse to accept that the nomination race” gave themselves the name PUMA — Party Unity My Ass, the Guardian noted at the time.
Eight years later, when Obama backed Clinton’s bid for the presidency, it was her vanquished primary opponent who seemed slow to reconcile. “Bernie Sanders Refuses to Concede Nomination to Hillary Clinton,” The Times wrote in early June 2016. Two weeks later, this headline from Politico: “Sanders again stops short of endorsing Clinton.” Another two weeks passed before Sanders endorsed Clinton, a delay Clinton later said was consequential.
In Michigan, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Congressman Mike Rogers, launched a “Democrats for Mike” social media campaign after the Democratic primary. On Friday of last week, the account had fewer than 100 followers. As of Monday, it has more than 8,000.