In Wisconsin, a progressive gubernatorial candidate is polling far ahead of the other candidates before the battleground state’s Democratic primary next week.
That was the story in Michigan, too: Polls showed Abdul El-Sayed handily beating Rep. Haley Stevens ahead of Tuesday’s Senate primary — but he had barely edged out a victory by the time the race was called the next morning. Now, some Democrats wonder if the same will come to pass in Wisconsin, where polling has shown state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, leading her opponents by double-digit margins for weeks.
Among the most doubtful is Hong’s leading opponent, David Crowley, who previously suspended his race in July because he wasn’t gaining traction before reentering 10 days later. Tuesday’s disconnect between polls and election day realities in Michigan brings Milwaukee County’s executive to one of the most optimistic points of his campaign so far. His team sent out an internal memo on Wednesday telling supporters his race is similarly closer than polls indicate.
“Results in Michigan Tuesday night showed polling that failed to appropriately capture and reflect the primary electorate and well overstated the position of the race frontrunner,” the memo, first reported by WISN, says. “Democrats are in the driver’s seat in Wisconsin to choose David Crowley and have the best fighting chance against Tom Tiffany in November.”
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If next week’s voter base resembles those of 2018 and 2022, the primary “does not have a prohibitive front runner,” the memo continues.
While El-Sayed’s win shows how a socialist candidate like Hong can similarly ascend, Michigan’s uneven polling shows how challenging it is to pull off accurate primary surveys, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — especially in Wisconsin and Michigan, where voters of any party can opt to participate.
“There are questions about where Hong stands,” Burden said. “There’s an opportunity for Crowley, and the Michigan results might be an indicator for him that it’s still a possibility.”
Wisconsin and Michigan are two of the country’s most consequential battleground states. Crowley’s camp argues Stevens’ better-than-expected performance proves more moderate candidates can still make good showings despite a recent progressive surge within the party.
“We don’t have to talk in theoreticals anymore about how this might work,” said a Democratic strategist who backs Crowley, given anonymity to candidly discuss the race. “Yeah, Haley didn’t win, but she lost by one point. But this isn’t us just trying to explain what our theory of the case is. … There is more money coming through the door today. There is more enthusiasm.”
Hong’s campaign, meanwhile, considers El-Sayed’s victory a harbinger of success in Wisconsin for the party’s left-most flank, which saw several candidates win Democratic primaries in New York City and Denver’s heavily blue districts. Michigan showed that working-class people are “ready for something different,” Hong said in a statement to NOTUS, adding that her campaign has “never taken the size of any projected margin for granted.”
“Polls are snapshots, and Michigan was another reminder that campaigns are won by organizing and turning out voters,” Hong said.
Stakes for Wisconsin Democrats are high in the state, which Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2024. The governor’s mansion, currently occupied by Democrat Tony Evers, has alternated between Republican and Democratic administrations since the 1970s. And the left’s gubernatorial candidate pool has ebbed and flowed significantly this summer — even prompting a lawsuit from the state party over the ability to recast ballots that was eventually dismissed.
Lt. Gov Sara Rodriguez dropped out of the race after reporting “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies” in her campaign finance filings. Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes ended his campaign last week shortly before the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported it was looking into allegations of sexual impropriety. Crowley himself had dropped out of the race briefly before reentering with Evers’ endorsement.
Whoever advances from the Aug. 11 primary will face a tough race against Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany.
State Navigate, a nonprofit that conducts polling on state government elections, concentrated on including more rural, low-income and Republican voters after seeing Michigan surveys miss those groups, executive director Chaz Nuttycombe said of a new survey coming out this week. A poll the organization conducted in late July showed Hong up by 29 points.
“It’ll probably be closer than people think based on the results in Michigan last night,” said another Democratic strategist in Wisconsin, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the race. “I think people thought that it was going to be a little more lopsided than it ended up being, and that’s probably what’s going to happen here in Wisconsin.”
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