Opponent says the 37-year-old frontrunner for Wisconsin’s Democratic governor nomination is ‘not ready for prime time’ ahead of the Aug. 11 primary.
Are progressive Democrats dooming the party for the midterms?
Democratic leaders are concerned that the momentum from Democratic socialists will be used by the GOP to paint the entire party as liberal activists.
- Wisconsin Democrat Francesca Hong is walking back comments about canceling Thanksgiving ahead of the gubernatorial primary.
- Hong has also disavowed parts of the national DSA platform, such as abolishing prisons and law enforcement.
- Fellow Democratic and Republican opponents have criticized Hong’s messaging, questioning her electability in a general election.
Wisconsin Democrat Francesca Hong is pressing the reset button ahead of the Aug. 11 gubernatorial primary after leaving the door open to canceling Thanksgiving in an Aug. 3 CNN interview.
The 37-year-old state legislator, a democratic socialist, is the frontrunner in a crowded swing state field that will be another significant test of how wide and tall the progressive wave will go in the 2026 Democratic primaries.
“There’s nothing more magical than being in a cranberry marsh, and cranberry stuffing is one of my absolute favorite dishes to make,” Hong, a professional chef, told USA TODAY in an Aug. 7 interview.
“I’m not going to cancel Thanksgiving,” she added.
Hong’s candidacy has touched a raw nerve among establishment Democrats, who argue her unpolished messaging raises concerns about the viability of her and other Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates.
Hong’s troubles under the national spotlight for culture war stances continued after the CNN interview, including an unearthing of previous social media posts criticizing Valentine’s Day, favoring abolishing the police and being uncomfortable around white people.
“She’s not ready for prime time, and the fact that she’s been asked very simple questions and the way that she’s responding to those questions makes the news even more should cause all of us to pause,” Democrat David Crowley, who is also running for Wisconsin governor on the Democratic side, said in an interview.
Republicans are salivating at Hong being on the November ballot where she will likely run against Republican Tom Tiffany, who is facing nominal opposition on the GOP side.
Amid President Donald Trump’s growing unpopularity, Republican candidates on the Badger State ballot say that a controversial Democratic nominee at the top of the other side of the ticket would give the GOP a helpful boost.
“It makes it easier to contrast (because) we’re not right versus left or Republican versus Democrat, we’re literally capitalist versus communist — and that’s terrifying,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, who is seeking re-election in a toss-up district, told USA TODAY.
Hong disavows parts of DSA platform amid scrutiny, progressive success
In a roughly 25-minute interview with USA TODAY, Hong said Americans are looking for a “new type of politics” and that her campaign’s success in the polls is related to a larger frustration with the country’s current economic woes.
She said Trump’s return to power and aggressive use of executive authority has awakened more progressive-minded voters on how quickly things can change.
“Progressives have presented not only an alternative, but the fact that hey, maybe it’s time we do something new, so we don’t come back to these moments where people like him can get into power,” Hong said.
But Republicans have already launched fiery responses early against the prospect of Hong being the Democratic nominee, highlighting those old social media posts, one of which had said, “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621.”
She has deleted the criticism of Thanksgiving, but the others remain online.
In a Feb. 14, 2022, post on X, Hong said she missed working in a restaurant every day, “except on VDay,” before launching into a criticism of the holiday’s capitalist underpinnings.
“As if we weren’t invisible enough to those who don’t recognize the emotional (and) physical labor of service work, the worst of humanity comes out from folks ‘celebrating’ on another day capitalism tells you how to show love,” she said.
Hong described being “on the verge of a anxiety attack” at a restaurant in a July 2, 2019, social media post due to the number of “old white people who didn’t think we spoke English.”
The missteps arrive at a time when the Democratic Socialists of America platform — which includes a call to ditch the U.S. Senate — is receiving sharper scrutiny.
During the discussion, Hong, who is a member in the local Madison, Wisconsin DSA chapter, at several points said she parted aways with elements of the national platform, which the group laid out at its July convention.
Among the calls for “building a new society from the ground up,” were expanding voting rights to include all permanent residents, publicly financing elections and expanding access to social services such as Medicare. Other aspects of that agenda include abolishing borders, prisons and the U.S. Senate, which Republicans have spotlighted as too radical for average Americans.
“These people are insane,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a July 27 post on X in response to a Fox News interview with Megan Romer, a DSA co-chair.
Hong said that as governor she wants to focus on “delivering for people the policies that improve the material conditions of their lives.” She said abolishing prisons and law enforcement, however, “is not going to help us do that,” especially for those struggling economically.
“I think when someone is unsafe for community, that removing them from community is a practical and sensible solution,” Hong said when asked about getting rid of prisons.
‘Rookie errors’: Democrats and GOP question Hong’s positions, abilities
Hong’s backpedaling on her more controversial stances comes at a critical juncture for democratic socialists and the larger progressive movement.
Wins in deeply liberal areas in New York City, Denver and Washington, DC, have raised their profile nationally. Those victories are expanding into swing states such as Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed — a progressive backed by prominent democratic socialists, but not one himself — prevailed in the Senate primary over a more moderate opponent.
That comes with sharper scrutiny and new challenges, experts and opponents say.
Megan Novak, state director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said Wisconsin’s race for governor will be close no matter the contenders.
She said Hong has trekked off a political cliff in the state, which Trump won by less than one percentage point in 2024.
“People are concerned about the future for their kids, and if we have a candidate who now has spent what four or five days flip-flopping on whether or not she likes Thanksgiving, it just shows that voters are not going to be able to trust her on the issues that they care most deeply about,” Novak said.
Conservative activists were already pummeling Hong by attacking her own plans, which include upending the nation’s first taxpayer-funded private school voucher program that began in Milwaukee in 1990.
Roughly 30,000 students are currently enrolled in schools using a voucher, according to state officials, a system both Crowley and Tiffany oppose changing.
“That’s tens of thousands of children across the state, especially in Milwaukee where thousands of mostly Black and Hispanic children would be ripped out of their school overnight,” Novak said.
Peter Dreier, a political science professor at Occidental College, who is considered one of the foremost experts on socialism said Hong is being thrust onto a much larger stage and she’s made some “rookie errors” in presenting herself.
“There’s a difference between movements and campaigns,” he said. “DSA is both a movement, which has broad views about where they would like the country to go, and it’s also got politicians that need to get elected.”
“Sometimes those two things are in conflict,” he added. “The movement part gets people excited, enthusiastic… But in a campaign you have to be a retail politician who can sell your product.”
In general, democratic socialism is defined as a belief that the economy should be democratically run for the benefit of the public. But opponents commonly connect it to communism, an authoritarian system associated with brutal regimes such as the Soviet Union and Cuba that believes the working class should take control through violent revolution.
On its website DSA describes it as a “system where ordinary people have a real voice” in workplaces and neighborhoods.
But a July Reuters/Ipsos poll found just 23% of Americans said they understand the policies and positions of democratic socialists extremely or very well. Only 21% of Democrats and Democratic leaning voters said the same.
Democrat Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst, said democratic socialists and other uber-progressive candidates must learn to be more disciplined if they’re going to win in competitive districts or states. He said it appears Hong is “running to be famous,” and that she isn’t as politically gifted as other contenders, such as El-Sayed, running in 2026.
“They’re on a learning curve when it comes to messaging, but also that curve is on the side of a mountain because it’s out of the mainstream,” Sellers, a South Carolina native, told USA TODAY.
“We’re talking about healthcare and we’re talking about affordability,” he added. “Stick to those things. But abolishing the police, banning Thanksgiving, them things — we don’t talk about those things in South Carolina.”
‘Duke it out’: Hong voters worry about November outcome
For Democrats concerned that Hong will cough up the Badger State’s gubernatorial seat their gaze is turning toward Crowley, Milwaukee County’s first Black executive, who is considered her most viable foe.
Crowley re-entered the race last month with a powerful ally — term-limited Gov. Tony Evers — by his side. He said part of the reason for jumping back in the race was Hong’s stumbles. He has minimized policy differences with Hong, instead focusing on how too much is at stake in this election to be “caught up in distractions and talking about past Twitter statements.”
The 40-year-old former state lawmaker has raked in union endorsements while pushing back against characterizations that he’s part of the party establishment, calling that description “a slur” in recent interviews.
“When I hear that term, it frustrates me because I have worked my entire life not to be placed in a box and continue to protect those who grew up in the same circumstances as me,” Crowley, whose parents struggled with substance abuse, told USA TODAY.
“We’re confusing those who have worked so hard and got to where they are as the establishment.”
Hong has held a double-digit lead in statewide polling of the field but a sizable 34% of Democratic voters remained undecided in the most recent Marquette University Law School poll.
The Crowley campaign is sprinting across the state making appeals to Democrats still on the fence, and they’ve mocked Hong’s previous comments about Thanksgiving, saying in an Aug. 6 statement that she “cannot talk turkey without reversing herself” in interviews.
At a busy early voting site on the north side of Madison, Wisconsin, even some of Hong’s supporters bristled at some of her controversial positions.
“I do wish she would tone it down a little bit, but I’m not opposed to the things she says,” Chad Norquist, 48, a maintenance mechanic from Madison, Wisconsin, told the USA TODAY Network. “I think it’s pretty good for people to hear stuff like that — doesn’t shock me at all.”
Hong’s lead appears all but insurmountable, according to the Marquette poll and an internal survey released this week by Crowley’s campaign that showed Hong leading by 20 percentage points.
Among the voters polled, those over age 60 were less likely to support Hong, whose most passionate supporters are younger, between the ages of 18 and 29.
Blake Vanniel, 28, of Madison, said that’s in part because he has a negative view of the Democratic Party, which he suggested needs a fresh generation of contenders. He is supporting Hong as a vote “against the establishment.”
“The primary season is for when you’re supposed to duke it out with your inner party and have those fights, but I think it’s pretty clear what voters want,” he said.
“They want politicians that are actually going to fight for the working people and not be beholden to the same corporate interests that fund the other side and fund all the horrible stuff.”
Most voters interviewed by the USA TODAY Network heading into the Aug. 11 primary election emphasized they did not support Hong’s past positions. Some described many of the more radical DSA ideas as unrealistic or ideological tests.
“I think the mainstream candidates have a better chance of beating Republicans,” said Tom Kapper, 61, of Madison. “I personally am more progressive and lean that direction, but I think, in the current climate, they would have a hard time coming in the general election.”