After hot DSA summer comes the fall.<\/p>\n

Democratic socialist Francesca Hong\u2019s stunning loss<\/a> in Wisconsin\u2019s Democratic gubernatorial primary Tuesday night revealed limits to the far left\u2019s power \u2014 and is undercutting the narrative of an emerging insurgency.<\/p>\n

While progressive Peggy Flanagan cruised by 20 points<\/a> in Minnesota\u2019s Senate primary, and last week the further left Abdul El-Sayed squeaked through his Senate race<\/a> in Michigan, Hong, the furthest left of the three, received no major national support and fell short.<\/p>\n

For a movement that had been riding high off a string of primary victories this cycle, including the Democratic Socialists of America\u2019s 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\u2019t join the effort to boost Hong. More institutional-leaning progressives argued that she was a fatally flawed candidate<\/a> with a long string of gaffes \u2014 and that her loss shouldn\u2019t be read as a referendum on the broader movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe got clobbered by the national media, didn\u2019t respond as deftly as Abdul and didn\u2019t have time to build a counter-narrative,\u201d said Cenk Uygur, the Young Turks founder and Justice Democrats co-founder. \u201cThe negative publicity of the last two weeks seems to have taken its toll.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s agricultural economy \u2014 all while refraining from the so-called woke battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t equate progressive and DSA,\u201d 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldwin, notably, did not endorse<\/a> in the primary \u2014 nor did other top Wisconsin progressives including Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a former co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus.<\/p>\n

The movement\u2019s leading national voices, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also kept Hong at arm\u2019s length<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie, AOC, and most national groups stayed out,\u201d said a progressive Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cAbdul El-Sayed was a great foot forward, Graham Platner was not, and we didn\u2019t need our political reputation hanging on this race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason the institutional left mostly stayed away,\u201d said a Democratic operative who works on progressive campaigns, granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cThe people who made those calls are relieved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hong\u2019s surprise flop drew attention on the left away from their biggest win of the night, where the Sanders-backed Flanagan \u2014 a solid progressive but not a democratic socialist \u2014 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\u2019s swingy third district.<\/p>\n

One donor adviser who works with progressive candidates around the country said Hong\u2019s loss is a \u201cgood thing for the movement,\u201d because it shows there is voter appetite for progressive ideas \u2014 but that candidate quality still matters, especially in a battleground.<\/p>\n

“This is a far better outcome, and says that it is so close that a progressive who doesn\u2019t say the dumbest shit in the world, [like] Thanksgiving should not exist, would have won,” the donor adviser said.<\/p>\n

But others blame Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for sitting out the race, arguing their involvement could\u2019ve gotten Hong comfortably over the finish line.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis movement will fail if we see more letdowns at the critical moment, like we saw in this race,\u201d said popular socialist voice Nathan J. Robinson, editor-in-chief of the leftist magazine Current Affairs. \u201cEspecially 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 and Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s teams did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Some in the movement looked to downplay Hong\u2019s 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\u2019 hand-picked favorite in a battleground state.<\/p>\n

They also noted Hong had her margins cut down in key strongholds by a fellow progressive who didn\u2019t heed calls to drop out of the race. State Sen. Kelda Roys pulled over 7 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 where Hong was largely left to fend for herself down the stretch \u2014 was hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWisconsin 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,\u201d said Deep Singh Badhesha, a DSA political operative who campaigned in past primary states.<\/p>\n

Our Revolution, the progressive group founded out of Sanders\u2019 2016 campaign that is no longer associated with him, offered a veiled jab at the progressives that didn\u2019t publicly support Hong \u2014 including, seemingly, their original founder who sat out the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot build progressive power while gatekeeping our own movement through the eyes of the establishment,\u201d the group said on X<\/a>. \u201cSolidarity cannot be something we practice only after someone has proven they can win without us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After hot DSA summer comes the fall. Democratic socialist Francesca Hong\u2019s stunning loss in Wisconsin\u2019s Democratic gubernatorial primary Tuesday night revealed limits to the far left\u2019s power \u2014 and is undercutting the narrative of an emerging insurgency. While progressive Peggy Flanagan cruised by 20 points in Minnesota\u2019s Senate primary, and last week the further left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}