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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.”
Politics
Progressives could score a huge Wisconsin win Tuesday. Some national figures don’t want to touch it.
MADISON, Wisconsin — Progressives believe they are on the cusp of another major victory against the establishment in the Wisconsin governor primary Tuesday — one that could pave the way for the movement in 2028 and beyond.
But so far, many national progressive leaders want nothing to do with the race.
A win by front-runner and democratic socialist Francesca Hong over Gov. Tony Evers’ handpicked successor David Crowley would be a major shockwave, setting up a key opportunity for the progressive movement to show its brand of politics can succeed in one of the most cutthroat battleground states. Some progressive organizers also argue that a Hong win serves as a test run of sorts for potential 2028 presidential contenders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
But the stars of the left like Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have not endorsed Hong despite having hit the trail for other prominent candidates, including Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. And a few have privately raised questions about the sharpness of Hong’s messaging and electability, as she navigates a series of controversies over her old social media posts advocating for canceling Thanksgiving and defunding the police — comments she now calls “bad takes” that she says she has learned from.
And other leaders say they aren’t familiar with who she is, underscoring the work Hong has ahead of her if she wins Tuesday.
“I don’t know her,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a brief hallway interview.
Sanders has said he would not endorse Hong and declined to comment when asked by Blue Light News about the race last Friday on Capitol Hill. Two people close to the senator, granted anonymity to discuss the private conversations, said that even as Hong has invoked Sanders’ name and political ideology on the campaign trail, he doesn’t know her personally. Sanders has acknowledged he’s met Hong before, but indicated that’s the extent of their relationship.
Those two people added that Hong is less vetted and not as sharp on some of her messaging than other candidates — presenting more of a risk for Sanders, who has already been burned by endorsing Graham Platner in the Maine Senate race.
Ocasio-Cortez also declined to endorse Hong. “My focus has been in winning back the Congress, winning back the House, and positioning ourselves to have the best chance possible to win the Senate,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, along with their advisers, say they’re more focused on control of Congress, and rarely endorse in state-level contests. But their lack of involvement, or even public encouragement of Hong’s campaign, could foretell just how immense a task Hong faces as she tries to convince moderate Democrats, independents and even people within her own progressive movement that she’s electable in November against Donald Trump-backed Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany.
General elections in the battleground state have been determined by extremely narrow margins in recent years. Trump won the battleground state in 2024 by just shy of 30,000 votes. Joe Biden won it by fewer than 21,000 votes in 2020.
Some Democratic officials in Wisconsin privately note Republicans have a big opportunity to hammer Hong on democratic socialism, which had a net negative rating among all registered voters in a July Marquette Law School poll.
But in spite of the hesitation from some top leaders of the left, a number of progressive groups are on board with her campaign.
“If Francesca Hong is elected the governor of Wisconsin, people are going to see somebody working very, very rigorously as the governor, like [Zohran] Mamdani is as the mayor of New York, to pursue a set of policies that people are rapidly going to recognize are in their best interests,” said Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America. “They’re going to embrace [Hong] as much as they have Mamdani, whose popularity right now is off the charts.”
On whether she can dispel electability criticisms that moderate Democrats often lob at progressives, Minsky said: “The proof will be in the pudding in November.”
A few federal-level progressive lawmakers have traveled to Wisconsin to campaign with Hong, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Hong has also channeled progressive star power in other ways: leftist influencer Hasan Piker rallied with her in Milwaukee earlier this month. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has also endorsed Hong.
Republicans in Wisconsin and at the national level are also already planning coordinated attacks against Hong for signing a questionnaire from the Madison-area Democratic Socialists of America stipulating candidates uphold the DSA platform and “view themselves as socialist organizers first, and legislators second,” as well as attacking her for her deputy campaign manager, a sex worker advocate named Renee Faust, having an OnlyFans account.
The Hong campaign pushed back on those attacks. “Renee Faust is a licensed mental health clinician who has spent her career providing care to trafficking survivors. She has helped build the largest grassroots campaign in Wisconsin history. The right-wing politicians attacking her are the same ones who want government dictating women’s health care decisions,” a Hong spokesperson said.
Hong’s allies privately attribute the lack of national endorsements from leading progressives to Sanders’ decision to stay out of the state-level race, arguing that others have taken a cue from him. However, the Vermont senator did endorse Troy Jackson for governor of Maine before Graham Platner dropped out.
Interviews with voters on the ground in Wisconsin show Hong has been able to tap into voters’ frustrations with party leaders and lean into local policies around cost of living to rally a strong enough base heading into Tuesday’s primary: She’s led Crowley by double digits in recent polls, though he’s been making gains.
If she can make it through the primary and general election against a Donald Trump-backed Republican, then she will force the Democratic establishment, and leading national progressives, to take notice.
“I feel like we’re at a point in our policies where Democrats are very happy to just kind of stay focused on being centrist,” Paige Gerber, a 33-year-old Hong supporter, said in an interview after running into Crowley at an ice cream shop campaign stop in Sheboygan. “And that’s where we’re losing in so many spaces, especially as we get more and more destitute in the economy. People are hurting, and people are really looking for … policies that are really for the people.”
Wisconsin Democratic officials are already planning a unity tour across the state with the governor and lieutenant governor nominees immediately following Tuesday’s primary, to try to turn the page from intense Democratic infighting between Hong’s allies and establishment Democrats in the state during the primary, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. State party chair Devin Remiker will join nominees on the tour.
Evers in an interview last Friday did not commit to endorsing or campaigning for Hong, should she win. But Democrats involved expect both he and Crowley would join the unity tour at some point ahead of November.
Still, many senior Democrats in the state believe Hong will need the help to convince enough voters in the purple state to turn out for her in November. They’re deeply concerned Hong isn’t running the kind of disciplined campaign that can defeat Tiffany.
“Socialism scares the shit out of the persuadable voters we routinely need to win here,” said one longtime Democratic campaign operative in the state, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “And the unforced errors will be deadly if she doesn’t sharpen some of her answers … for her past tweets and positions.”
A Democratic staffer who is supporting Hong said she “needs to be more on message about what actually matters,” adding: “ I don’t think she has to moderate her policies … she is just going to have to be more precise.”
Wisconsin’s lone Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who hasn’t endorsed in the race, said in an interview last Friday she “decided not to put my thumb on the scale,” though she does plan to back whoever wins.
When asked about Hong’s electability as a democratic socialist in a general election, Baldwin pivoted to an attack on Republicans.
“I’m preparing to bring up Trump’s record on the same things,” she said. “Look, this is a referendum this fall about whether we’re going to elect MAGA people or whether we’re going to stand up for health care, stand up for SNAP benefits. Those are the issues before the state.”
Members of President Donald Trump’s political team asked Ohio Republicans last week not to wage a public pressure campaign against embattled GOP Rep. Max Miller, after they became increasingly convinced he wouldn’t end his reelection bid.
Their engagement, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of private conversations, came as Miller insists he has no plans to withdraw despite serious allegations of domestic abuse, which he denies. Before that, some White House officials and Republicans had urged Miller to drop out of his race for reelection.
Miller’s determination to remain in the race would render efforts to oust him moot, administration officials reasoned in calls with party leaders and other Republicans in the state over the past week. It would complicate messaging, the officials argued, when those same leaders would likely later have to defend Miller’s candidacy against a Democratic challenger.
“They basically told us to back off,” said one Ohio Republican involved in the conversations, “and let the voters decide.”
Miller faced a 4 p.m. Monday deadline to drop out, and state party leaders would have had to schedule a meeting to discuss his replacement two days prior to that.
At one point, Republicans in the state discussed scheduling the required meeting to replace Miller, in the hopes it would pressure him to drop out of the race, according to two of the people. But Ohio Republicans scuttled that effort as White House officials warned them that Miller would not drop out and Republicans would likely have to defend the seat without a new GOP replacement contender.
Spokespeople for Miller and for the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Some Republicans argue they have no choice but to close ranks around a candidate accused by his father-in-law, Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, of being unfit to serve and needing psychological help; Ohio’s other Republican senator, Jon Husted, has also said Miller should resign and not run for reelection. Miller has remained defiant amid the calls to resign.
Allegations from Emily Moreno, the senator’s daughter and Miller’s ex-wife, include that Miller held a gun to her head and broke their daughter’s collarbone. Many of the allegations were contained in state investigatory documents related to a child abuse probe. Miller has denied the allegations.
Speaker Mike Johnson has so far declined to weigh into Miller’s candidacy as well, telling Blue Light News in an interview that he will let the House Ethics Committee process play out first. The committee announced an investigation into Miller last week, after the representative said he would file paperwork to investigate himself.
The allegations could haunt Miller in his competitive race this November against Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker already benefitting from the political headwinds facing Republicans — from high gas prices to the ongoing war in Iran.
“As I’ve said before, if the accusations against Max Miller are proven true, he should be in prison, not in Congress. It’s unfortunate that Miller has chosen to keep putting his ex-wife and her family through this nightmare in the public spotlight,” Poindexter said in a statement when it became official Miller was staying on the ballot. “But let me be perfectly clear. I got into this campaign to fight for my neighbors and for working people across this district. That continues to be my north star.”
It comes at a time when Republicans cannot afford to lose any members of their slim majority without risking a House Democratic takeover in 2027. Ohio’s 7th Congressional District was, just weeks ago, considered safely red; now, Republicans have polling that shows Miller underwater in his district.
Some National Republicans argue the seat will inevitably stay in GOP hands. It is a reliably conservative district Trump won by 11 points in 2024. Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters said in an interview Sunday with NewsNation that the party’s main campaign fundraising arm would likely continue to support Miller’s reelection bid.
“We’re gonna support our nominees,” Gruters said. “We need to make sure we hold the majorities. Max, I’m sure, is on that side, but listen, everybody has to prove that they are capable of winning, and then we’re going to look at our resources and make the decisions.”
But other Republicans fear that Miller’s decision to remain in the race will force party committees to spend heavily.
“It’s still winnable, it’s just going to be expensive,” said one national Republican operative, like others granted anonymity to speak candidly. “At a time when Republicans are playing defense, like you’re just spreading your dollars thinner and thinner across the board.”
A second Ohio-based Republican said they are “concerned” that the allegations against Miller are “going to result in fewer votes, less ability to fundraise.”
“Nothing good comes out of this,” the Republican said. “He’s not going to gain any votes, and he’s not going to gain any fundraising, and he’s going to be completely distracted. It’s a sideshow.”
Another White House official last week noted the growing sense of inevitability that Miller would remain in the race, once the two-term lawmaker and former Trump aide began comparing his situation to attempts over the years to take down Trump for similar accusations of abuse and misconduct.
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” the White House official told Blue Light News after the president spoke with Miller on the matter.
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