Politics

Crowley zeroes in on ‘MAGA extremism’ to rebuild a fractured Wisconsin coalition

Published

3 minutes ago

August 13, 2026

David Crowley has a strategy to win over the voters who backed democratic socialist Francesca Hong on Tuesday: make the governor’s race an existential fight against “MAGA extremism.”

Wisconsin Democrats have spent the past day scrambling to unite the far left and centrist factions of the party after a bitter primary battle defined by questions of electability and how far left of an ideology to pursue. The same is happening in Michigan, where the party has just three months to mend broken fences and get progressive Abdul El-Sayed elected in another competitive state this November.

Crowley told Blue Light News he plans to use GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany and President Donald Trump as the foils that bring everyone together.

“We’re not all going to agree on everything. But I think we agree that the ultimate goal is making sure that we don’t have a MAGA extremist and congressman Tom Tiffany sitting in the governor’s office,” Crowley said in an interview Thursday, adding that the state “has a grand opportunity in putting some level of check on Trump’s agenda” amid the “affordability crisis.”

Democrats view holding onto the governor’s mansion in Wisconsin — a top battleground state that Trump won by just shy of 30,000 votes in 2024 — as critical for acting as a bulwark against Trump. They’re hoping to secure a governing trifecta in the state for the first time since 2010.

Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive who was hand-picked by current Gov. Tony Evers, said he plans to not only fold in the left flank, but also reach out to independents and previous GOP voters who “feel rejected by this current Republican party.” Evers himself ousted GOP then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2018 thanks to a coalition that cut across Democratic strongholds, independents and some Republican-leaning voters.

Crowley also said he’s already talked to “some Republicans who are more interested in defeating Tom Tiffany.”

Trump’s approval rating has been continually slipping, and Crowley’s advisers believe focusing on the cost of living under the Trump administration amid an unpopular Iran war is a sweet spot to hit a broad cross-section of voters.

But even as he committed to reaching out to voters who had backed Hong, Crowley told Blue Light News he would not campaign with some of her top surrogates on the trail — and demurred when asked whether he’d bring on any Hong allies to staff his general election campaign, saying everyone is “welcome” at the table.

When asked whether he would campaign with controversial, leftist social media influencer Hasan Piker, Crowley responded: “No.”

“I don’t know Hasan, but I always want to be focused on Wisconsin voters,” he added.

Hong has committed to hitting the trail with Crowley ahead of November, but many of his allies see her as too much of a political liability to be directly involved. They’re worried her brand of democratic socialism — and past controversial social media posts about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving — could affect Crowley’s wider appeal.Crowley also isn’t budging on a key campaign policy issue that divided the primary: He will not embrace the moratorium on data center development that Hong ran on.

“No moratorium,” Crowley said in the interview, adding he and Hong do agree on adding “guardrails” on data center development and operation via a package of legislation.

“I let folks know exactly where I stood on data centers,” he said. “That’s why we were able to not only consolidate many of those undecided voters, but get many rural communities to support us as well, because we have a common-sense approach to make sure that we’re protecting our environment, protecting our water, and protecting ourselves … when it comes down to these data centers.”

Politics

Platner announced as speaker for activist-led event in Maine

Published

33 minutes ago

August 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race last month amid sexual assault allegations, was announced as a speaker for a Labor Day event in Ellsworth, Maine, next month.

The event was organized by the groups Hancock County Activists and Acadia Action Peacemakers, according to information shared with the Hancock County Democratic Party. Both have been behind “No Kings” protests and other organized events in the area since the start of last year. Neither responded immediately to inquiries about the event on Thursday.

Platner, who is from nearby Sullivan, Maine, dropped out of the Senate race following a July Blue Light News report that a woman he dated accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2021. Platner denied the allegation.

Marcia Myers, the chair of the Hancock County Democratic Party, said the event set to feature Platner was not a sanctioned party event but that the party often shares information about activist-led events in the area. The county party’s Facebook and Instagram posts mentioning Platner’s event were deleted, though the event was still listed on the party’s website.

Platner did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the event on Thursday.

Platner was replaced in the Senate race by former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, as Democrats are seeking to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins in an election of high importance to both parties nationally.

Outside groups supporting Collins have sought to tie Jackson to Platner, noting Jackson, who previously ran for governor, endorsed Platner’s campaign and appeared at rallies for him. Jackson called for Platner to drop out of the race after the sexual assault allegation.

Jalen Beckford contributed to this story.

Politics

Adam Schiff on Democrats’ ‘losing message,’ AOC and AIPAC

Published

17 hours ago

August 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Adam Schiff on Democrats’ ‘losing message,’ AOC and AIPAC

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Politics

The far left hits a wall

Published

1 day ago

August 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

After hot DSA summer comes the fall.

Democratic socialist Francesca Hong’s stunning loss in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary Tuesday night revealed limits to the far left’s power — and is undercutting the narrative of an emerging insurgency.

While progressive Peggy Flanagan cruised by 20 points in Minnesota’s Senate primary, and last week the further left Abdul El-Sayed squeaked through his Senate race in Michigan, Hong, the furthest left of the three, received no major national support and fell short.

For a movement that had been riding high off a string of primary victories this cycle, including the Democratic Socialists of America’s recent wins in New York and Colorado, the deflating Wisconsin result led to an immediate round of finger-pointing on the far left. Some dyed-in-the-wool democratic socialists blamed fellow travelers who didn’t join the effort to boost Hong. More institutional-leaning progressives argued that she was a fatally flawed candidate with a long string of gaffes — and that her loss shouldn’t be read as a referendum on the broader movement.

“She got clobbered by the national media, didn’t respond as deftly as Abdul and didn’t have time to build a counter-narrative,” said Cenk Uygur, the Young Turks founder and Justice Democrats co-founder. “The negative publicity of the last two weeks seems to have taken its toll.”

Some mainline progressives sought to distinguish far-left democratic socialism from a broader movement, citing examples such as Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis), a progressive who has won statewide by focusing on kitchen table issues, health care and the state’s agricultural economy — all while refraining from the so-called woke battles.

“I wouldn’t equate progressive and DSA,” said one Wisconsin Democratic operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly. The person added of a democratic socialist’s outlook in Wisconsin ahead of 2028: “I do think there is a ceiling at this point.”

Baldwin, notably, did not endorse in the primary — nor did other top Wisconsin progressives including Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a former co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus.

The movement’s leading national voices, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also kept Hong at arm’s length and withheld their endorsements. Some who viewed Hong as a long shot in the general election and want the movement to avoid missteps like they saw with Graham Platner in Maine say the results proved those concerns were well founded.

“Bernie, AOC, and most national groups stayed out,” said a progressive Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Abdul El-Sayed was a great foot forward, Graham Platner was not, and we didn’t need our political reputation hanging on this race.”

“There’s a reason the institutional left mostly stayed away,” said a Democratic operative who works on progressive campaigns, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The people who made those calls are relieved.”

Hong’s surprise flop drew attention on the left away from their biggest win of the night, where the Sanders-backed Flanagan — a solid progressive but not a democratic socialist — easily defeated moderate Rep. Angie Craig in the Minnesota Senate primary. A progressive won a primary in the seat to replace Craig, while the Sanders-backed Rebecca Cooke won a primary for Wisconsin’s swingy third district.

One donor adviser who works with progressive candidates around the country said Hong’s loss is a “good thing for the movement,” because it shows there is voter appetite for progressive ideas — but that candidate quality still matters, especially in a battleground.

“This is a far better outcome, and says that it is so close that a progressive who doesn’t say the dumbest shit in the world, [like] Thanksgiving should not exist, would have won,” the donor adviser said.

But others blame Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for sitting out the race, arguing their involvement could’ve gotten Hong comfortably over the finish line.

Other DSA rising stars including Melat Kiros and Chris Rabb, who had spent other recent primary days campaigning in states like Michigan and Colorado, also skipped Wisconsin.

“This movement will fail if we see more letdowns at the critical moment, like we saw in this race,” said popular socialist voice Nathan J. Robinson, editor-in-chief of the leftist magazine Current Affairs. “Especially if AOC wants to be taken seriously as a national leader of the left movement, she needs to actually support the candidates out there who have a chance to notch victories.”

Sanders’ and Ocasio-Cortez’s teams did not respond to requests for comment.

Some in the movement looked to downplay Hong’s showing as more of a stumble than a turning point, noting that a first-time statewide candidate came within a few thousand votes of sitting Gov. Tony Evers’ hand-picked favorite in a battleground state.

They also noted Hong had her margins cut down in key strongholds by a fellow progressive who didn’t heed calls to drop out of the race. State Sen. Kelda Roys pulled over 7 percent of the vote.

Organizers watched a national volunteer army flood neighboring Michigan just a week earlier to help El-Sayed grind out a surprisingly close race. To them, the contrast with Wisconsin — where Hong was largely left to fend for herself down the stretch — was hard to ignore.

“Wisconsin being this close is very frustrating because folks like AOC and Bernie Sanders stayed out. If they just did one rally in Wisconsin for Hong, that would have probably wrapped it up for her,” said Deep Singh Badhesha, a DSA political operative who campaigned in past primary states.

Our Revolution, the progressive group founded out of Sanders’ 2016 campaign that is no longer associated with him, offered a veiled jab at the progressives that didn’t publicly support Hong — including, seemingly, their original founder who sat out the race.

“We cannot build progressive power while gatekeeping our own movement through the eyes of the establishment,” the group said on X. “Solidarity cannot be something we practice only after someone has proven they can win without us.”