Hong’s loss is Crowley’s gain
The polling indicated Hong’s win was a foregone conclusion, and it would be by double digits. Large double digits.
And yet she lost – by a small margin, but a loss. The Democrat establishment breathes a sigh of relief, and the GOP is unhappy because she was considered easy to beat.
Her voters may be angry enough to stay home in November. Then again, they may rouse themselves to vote for Crowley in order to avoid the big bad GOP.
This may be a good time to note that Hong was one of the worst candidates I’ve ever seen, and I’m not just talking about her DSA idiocy or her Thanksgiving angst or her saying she is “white adjacent” because she has a half-white son. Those things are terrible, and there were plenty more where those came from. But what I’m referring to is her extreme vocal fry, like gravelly chalk on a blackboard, and her complete lack of dynamism.
There’s a pattern emerging between this contest and the one in Michigan that was won by El-Sayed. Although in the case of Wisconsin the DSA candidate narrowly lost and in Michigan the DSA-adjacent 🙂 candidate narrowly won, in both races the polls were terrible predictors and in both the DSA- candidates were considered way way ahead. Were the polls just bad, or was there fraud in Wisconsin (and I suppose there could have been both)? After all, in these races the DSA people were running against the Democrat establishment that controls the vote-counting, not with it.
Take a look at the Wisconsin polls for the race. Even as recently as 8/7, Hong was extremely far ahead. What happened? You can see the basis for fraud allegations in this article; judge for yourself.
What I think is that most of the electorate wasn’t familiar with how awful Hong was until shortly before the primary vote, and when they learned of her previous statements and her extremist views they changed their minds. I don’t think fraud was necessary, although it’s certainly strongly possible. One of the reasons I tend to think the result wasn’t fraudulent is that I followed the vote-reporting very closely, checking last night every twenty minutes or so starting about an hour after the polls had closed, and Crowley was ahead all the way. At all points his lead more or less resembled his ultimate victory margin, although it waxed and waned somewhat. He took a small lead early and he kept it for the duration. I saw no evidence of vote-dumping there.
What’s most upsetting is that Hong almost won, and in a purple state like Wisconsin. Very sobering. However, we’ve become used to the extremism of the Democrat base this voting cycle.
Unilaterly
Suppressed
Ballots
What’s most upsetting is that Hong almost won, and in a purple state like Wisconsin. Very sobering.
Praise the Lord she lost. But, it’s extremely sobering. We’re are all dancing on excrement now, and hoping we don’t fall in.
You know… The Democrat leadership went a long, long ways towards inciting this mob activism and mob hatred over the last ten years. I’d argue over the last 25 years. I would presume that these leaders must have thought that this would all work to their advantage and that the downside would be minimal. It seems to me that it did create advantages for them, but that they grossly underestimated those downsides.
Crowley was the Milwaukee County county executive and thus in control of the Milwaukee machine (or perhaps it should be said the Milwaukee machine is in control of him). That machine is where the election fraud happens.
Hong’s base of support was in the other heavily Democrat Wisconsin county: Dane County, home of Madison and the University of Wisconsin. Madison brings college enthusiasm to the table, but it’s not big enough to go against the Milwaukee machine if the machine decides to flex its muscle.
We should consider ourselves fortunate that the primary happened outside of the UW school year, or Hong could very well have won it. Either that, or the machine makes it obvious and says “What are you going to do about it?” The answer from the Wisconsin governor and the Milwaukee County county executive would have been “Nothing.”
TommyJay:
The DSA candidates remind me of the Eagles’ song “New Kid in Town.”
I’m not sure Crowley will have an easy time in the general election. He dropped out because of poor support and fund-raising and jumped back in only when establishment Dems realized Hong might win. He doesn’t seem to be wildly popular outside of Milwaukee.
Kate:
That may be enough, especially because Milwaukee is a blue voting machine city.
neo,
I have my old friend visiting me for car week in Monterey. A 35 year tradition. He had been an inveterate reader of the New Yorker, and was relatively left wing most of his life, though he’s probably say he’s been a Dem leaning independent. Now, he’d probably say that he didn’t leave the Democrat party; it left him.
Anyway, he showed me this Bill Maher video. Oh my.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIjYHVh5kI
Then I showed him your video with the former DSA member who quit in disgust from your post several days ago.
I love that Eagles song. Written by JD Souther. Most songs have a chorus with static lyrics. Some vary the chorus just a tiny bit. “New Kid” has a chorus that evolves with the cresting fame, then the fade, then the bitterness. Watching your former girlfriend with her new guy. Ouch. He chose her poorly. Kinda like voting for a Mamdani or a Hong.
TommyJay;
Glad to hear about your friend. Not a single one of my friends has undergone a similar change, unfortunately.
Love that song. Good lyrics, too.
What we’ll see is do “facts” matter in the mid-terms. Never, never estimate the.electorate. The Dems are also going through their own.Strom Thurmond phase.
Polls that you don’t pay for should be assumed to be bad, just as a matter of mental hygiene. The polls put in front of you are put there to support somebody’s narrative; you would not see them if they didn’t.
Public polls are a shambling zombie, a relict of the days when “news” was about reporting events and not narrative propagation, and when what the public thought was something that they attempted to report on instead of to shape.
It is a waste of time trying to figure out how good they are or what they mean, they’re essentially marketing at this point. It’s like trying to check up on whether 9 out 10 dentists really recommend Colgate toothpaste and worrying about whether it might have been only six.
The customers of the polling outfits are not us, they are the media outfits writing about them. Hong’s campaign was no doubt paying for accurate polling and that was a factor in her willingness to concede the primary when the margin was so much tighter than the polls: it was no surprise to her.
Hong had poll numbers yet lost
Doesn’t speak well for poll takers who want a result then go find how toget them
Re: Hong’s loss in Wisconsin primary [copied from Open Thread]
Vox has an article titled “Francesca Hong lost. Here’s what it means for progressives.”
As Vox tells it, the Democrat leaders decided that Hong was too radical to win, so in the midst of much candidate chaos they maneuvered Crowley back into the race, threw their support to Crowley (Ă la Biden/Sanders in 2020), and Crowley squeaked out a win against Hong.
Democrats call that democracy.
However, Vox also played a version of “Republicans pounce” with a twist:
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Republicans, meanwhile, were happy to take advantage of the mess to try to build momentum for Hong, who they saw as a weaker opponent. A group associated with the Republican Governors Association spent over $3 million on “attack” ads to help elevate her profile with Democratic primary voters.
–Vox, “Francesca Hong lost. Here’s what it means for progressives.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/francesca-hong-lost-here-s-what-it-means-for-progressives/ar-AA29VW3t
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So, if I’ve got that straight, Republicans were trying to help Hong win by running attack ads.
Karl Rove lives!
Maybe. I’m sure those ads were also part of the general all-out Republican strategy in 2026 to hang Democrats by the DSA label.
From what I’ve read, for example this, there’s not a lot of daylight between Crowley and Hong on policy questions. Crowley just bobs and weaves better than Hong.
A certain percentage of dems vote dem because that’s as far left as they can get. Not because they like traditional dem policies and philosophies. If the dems go further left, these folks will march along with them. And others who’ve favored too-crazy -to-count third parties may come aboard at this level of leftishness. So it’s the more or less rational folks who leave who will make the difference. Not sure if they’ll vote republican or stay home. The first might be too icky.
Neo wrote “…her extreme vocal fry…”
Really? In what I’ve heard (maybe just old clips) she sounded like Sandy Cortez’s kid sister.
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Is it possible that the DSA has partially infiltrated the vote fraud operations?