By Renee Hickman
Aug 11 (Reuters) - Democratic socialist Francesca Hong and moderate David Crowley were locked in a tighter-than-expected battle for Wisconsin's closely watched Democratic gubernatorial
primary election on Tuesday, in a key test for the appeal of progressive candidates in the battleground state.
With more than 90% of the votes counted, the race between Hong and Crowley was too close to call. According to U.S. media projections, Milwaukee County Executive Crowley carried a lead of just a few hundred votes over Hong, who is looking to become the first democratic socialist governor of Wisconsin.
The nominee will face the Republican's pick, U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany, in the November general election.
The evening's primary results in the Upper Midwest also raised questions about the power of an endorsement by U.S. President Donald Trump.
In Minnesota, former MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell lost the Republican nomination for governor to Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Lisa Demuth, despite the vocal backing of Trump.
Lindell is an enduring Trump ally and proponent of the false idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Lindell received Trump's endorsement in May, when the president wrote on Truth Social, “Mike will be SPECTACULAR!!! He truly loves Minnesota, as do I, and wants to bring it back from oblivion and embarrassment. He can do it!”
Demuth is expected to face a difficult battle with Democratic nominee, Senator Amy Klobuchar, who won her party's nomination handily, in the aftermath of "Operation Metro Surge," the immigration deportation campaign in Minneapolis that led to the deaths of two people.
MINNESOTA SENATE MATCHUP
Minnesota's Democratic Senate primary indicated there is still momentum behind left-leaning candidates, with progressive Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who was elected on a ticket with Governor Tim Walz in 2018, beating more moderate Representative Angie Craig.
The candidates are seeking the seat left open by Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat who announced her retirement in February 2025.
Craig was the only Minnesota Democrat to vote for the Laken Riley Act, which gave the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency broader authority to detain immigrants charged with some crimes, but later said she regretted her vote.
Flanagan has said ICE is out of control and must be dismantled.
In Wisconsin, Hong's left-leaning policy goals, including abolishing ICE, a one-year moratorium on data centers and increased taxation of billionaires and corporations, may be growing in popularity among Democratic voters.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Democratic voters want their party's candidates to track further to the left. More than seven in 10 liberal Democrats say it’s “essential” for their party’s candidates to support increasing taxes on corporations and billionaires (76%), expanding access to abortion (72%) and universal government-provided healthcare (71%).
But unlike Abdul El-Sayed, another progressive who captured the Michigan Democratic Senate primary earlier this month, Hong is running without endorsements from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
And Hong has faced criticism for the reappearance of old tweets, including a November 2020 post, at the height of a COVID-19 wave, in which she wrote, "Please DON'T gather for the colonizer holiday," and another when she said, "Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621."
In recent interviews, Hong has walked back those statements, saying that as a chef, she had fond memories of the Thanksgiving holiday, but that Thanksgiving is a time that is painful for many people. In another interview she said that she did not want to cancel Thanksgiving.
Hong did not respond to a request for an interview.
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin's 3rd congressional district, Democrats chose Rebecca Cooke, a former small business owner and waitress who has run for the seat twice before, as their challenger to Trump-aligned Republican Derrick Van Orden, who has held the district since 2022, in one of the most competitive House races in the country.
Cooke has out-fundraised Van Orden, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added her to its Red to Blue program, providing organizational and financial support to candidates in the elections it considers the most hotly contested.
(Reporting by Renee Hickman; Editing by Michael Learmonth, Lincoln Feast and Sanjeev Miglani)
