Reading Time: 4 minutes
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s win over Madison Rep. Francesca Hong in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary was undoubtedly a shocking comeback.
In the last Marquette Law School Poll before the primary, Hong had 38% support compared with 7% for Crowley. But don’t blame the polling! That same poll showed former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes with 16% support before he dropped out. Another 34% were undecided. The rapid pace of the modern news cycle means voters likely didn’t even tune in until the final weeks. We knew Democrats were sharply divided heading into Tuesday, but predicting precise results proved to be a fool’s errand.
But now that we know the winner, here are some factors that might account for what happened.
A sitting governor’s endorsement matters — a lot
There’s no modern precedent — not since 1970 — for a sitting Wisconsin governor backing a candidate in their party’s primary. The lack of clear direction from the establishment allowed several candidates to hang around until Tuesday, but once Gov. Tony Evers started stumping for Crowley, conservative and moderate Democrats had clarity.
Also worth noting: Evers is still relatively popular. The Marquette Poll found 47% of all voters had a favorable view compared with 43% who had an unfavorable view (most politicians these days are under water). His job approval was at 51%. And 36% of likely Democratic primary voters said Evers’ endorsement made it more likely they would support Crowley.
Democrats want to win
When Democrats were desperate to defeat Gov. Scott Walker in 2018, they nominated the moderate old white guy. That became a blueprint for winning the 2020 presidential election as well. After electing five Supreme Court justices and knocking on the door of a legislative majority this fall, they don’t want to blow a once-in-a-generation chance to enact their agenda (i.e. reversing Act 10, accepting Medicaid expansion, protecting abortion access, boosting public schools).
Hong spent the last two weeks of the primary as the presumptive nominee and faced an avalanche of negative press about her past social media statements about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving.
Whether you like those views or not, they’re not moderate. But Wisconsin general election voters generally are. It’s possible that’s what kept progressives like U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Bernie Sanders and U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the sidelines.
One other consideration: Crowley has been running Milwaukee County government for six years. A primary is like a job interview, and Crowley’s resume was a better fit for the traditional notion of what a governor does.
Huge turnout
There were nearly 800,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary this year. In 2018 there were 538,000 votes cast. Evers won about 42% that year. Crowley won just shy of 40%.
There was some speculation that Republicans would cross over and vote for Hong in the primary to help U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany. But in the final weekend top Republicans, including Walker, were discouraging that strategy because of concerns about a democratic socialist winning in November. Whether that was more bluster aimed at pushing voters into Hong’s column … doesn’t really matter any more.
Hong won Dane County, Crowley won Milwaukee County — but not by much
Neither candidate ran up the scoreboard on their home turf. But that’s likely because there are moderate and progressive Democrats all over.
Some noted Sen. Kelda Roys’ strong showing in Dane County might have cost Hong progressive votes. Roys received about 10,000 fewer votes than she did in 2018.
Hong also polled much better among young voters, and she appeared to do well in counties with University of Wisconsin campuses like Eau Claire, La Crosse, Kenosha and Winnebago, but undergraduates don’t return until the end of August.
Black voters are mobilizing in 2026
Black voters are a small (about 5% of the general electorate) but important voting bloc for Democrats. When they stay home, Republicans have a better shot of winning statewide elections. When they mobilize, Democrats like Barack Obama win Wisconsin by double digits.
There’s some evidence that Republican attempts to dismantle majority-Black voting districts for the sake of picking up House seats in the South are mobilizing voters there. Elections are nationalizing, and what mobilizes a voting bloc in one part of the country could be mobilizing them everywhere. In Milwaukee County there were 151,000 votes cast, up from 113,000 in 2018.
Worth noting: Crowley would be Wisconsin’s first Black governor. The United States has only ever had six Black men serve as governor. Only Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is serving currently.
Betting markets on the Wisconsin governor’s race have flipped
In the weeks before the election, Tiffany had overtaken a generic Democratic candidate in the betting markets (which Wisconsin voters can’t legally participate in) with a 60% chance of winning. As it became clear that Crowley had a chance of beating Hong on Tuesday night, the market flipped to 78% in favor of Crowley.
Another easily preventable late Milwaukee ballot count
Ballot-counting errors happen. When elections are blowouts, no one notices. When they’re close, every little misstep gets overblown.
Milwaukee didn’t report its final absentee ballot count until early Wednesday morning. There was a mistake in downloading data from vote tabulators. There’s no evidence that votes were tampered with or changed. Republicans still pounced on the delay as evidence of something suspicious.
It’s worth noting that Republicans are also the ones who have refused to pass a clean bill that would allow absentee ballots to be processed starting on the Monday before an election. That would likely prevent the kind of hyperventilating that happens when a winner isn’t known before the 10 o’clock news.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
7 takeaways from David Crowley’s stunning win in the Democratic primary for governor is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
