Why Francesca Hong Lost

Francesca Hong, the 38-year-old Democrat and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member from Madison, Wisconsin, lost the Democratic primary for Governor by fewer than 4000 votes. Hong received more than 300,000 votes in a “purple” state and was only narrowly defeated. Hong’s loss can be attributed not to her being a socialist or for being “too radical”. She lost because she ran as a socialist in an anti-socialist and pro-capitalist party. She lost because an alliance of capitalists, the leadership of the Democratic Party, and even the figureheads of Democratic Socialism all worked to undermine her campaign. 

Hong, former small business owner, state assembly representative, and single mother ran on four popular promises: free childcare, fully funded public schools, a one-year moratorium on the construction of AI facilities in the state, and to raise taxes on the “billionaire class”. Hong’s campaign was very popular, launching her campaign into a comfortable lead in the polls over her “moderate” opponent David Crowley ahead of the primary. More than seven hundred rank and file largely DSA members knocked on an estimated 120,000 doors to encourage a vote for a socialist.

Crowley had previously dropped out of the candidate-heavy-race as it seemed his campaign had no hope—but he was beckoned back into the race by Governor Tony Evers to rejoin the race with his endorsement. David Crowley, a relatively unknown Milwaukee County Executive, became the best hope for the Democratic Party establishment to beat Hong. His backers promoted him as more “electable,” and the only candidate able to beat Republican Tom Tiffany in November. This became the chorus taken up by the ruling ranks inside the Democratic Party, the capitalist media, and from nearly ever corner of an orchestrated campaign to smear Hong as “too leftwing” and “unelectable.” 

Democratic Socialists turn against Francesca Hong

A broad alliance formed to rally opposition to Francesca Hong. Big donations from tech capitalists eager to build AI datacenters poured $4 million dollars into the race against Hong in the final weeks, and supporting Crowley’s pro-data center position. More significantly, not only did the conservative Democratic establishment close ranks behind Crowley and against Hong, but so too did the leading representatives of Democratic Socialism. New York-based Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also refused to endorse Hong, sending the signal that they also considered Hong’s campaign too “left” and “radical”.

AOC, a potential Democratic Presidential candidate for 2028, has recently made a public effort to distance herself from her former socialist political stances to defund the police and abolish ICE.  She even recently mocked these political demand that developed out of the immigrant rights movement against mass detention of 2018 and the Black Lives Matter rebellion after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 as “crazy,” ridiculing them as “Wokeness 1.0.”  To be “electable”, i.e.—politically acceptable to the capitalist Democratic Party leadership and their billionaire backers—AOC wants to demonstrate her responsibility to manage the capitalist state, which means accepting the logic of repressive policing of working-class communities of color and immigrants as necessary components of capitalist class rule.

Murder of Corey Ruiz

Just days before the election, a Madison cop named Kiel Baitinger-Peterson shot and murdered Corey Durell Ruiz for no other reason than being Black and homeless. This should have become a rallying point for the Hong campaign and the DSA. They could have used the killing to demand the police be defunded and that services for the homeless and poor be funded instead, and to show that they stand with the working class and poor communities of color against police violence. Hong could have called on her supporters to converge on the corner of Williamson and South Baldwin Streets (where Ruiz was killed) to demand that Baitinger-Peterson be fired, arrested, and convicted.

Hong and the DSA chose not to do that.

Why didn’t Francesca Hong, a self-described friend of the indebted line cooks, single mothers, and working-class people everywhere not do that?  It could have been a flashpoint for reigniting a mass movement against the racist violence of policing. It could have connected a struggle to hold the cops accountable with the real desire of many people to see the police gangs defunded and dismantled. It was an opportunity to demonstrate real political leadership, one that could show that socialists are serious about organizing and leading the people in struggle for tangible gains. 

But this did not come to pass.

Can’t build for socialism in a capitalist party

As the DSA’s strategy is to run campaigns through the Democratic Party, they must also show “responsibility” in not directly challenging the capitalist state. As we see happening with AOC, aspiring DSA candidates and elected members experience pressures to moderate and conform into alignment with the dominant politics and practices of the Democratic Party in exchange for party funding, support, and access. Since the Democratic Party is a corporate structure created for and controlled by sections of the capitalist class to advance their class interests, it cannot be moved left or transformed from within into a socialist party. The Democratic Party exists to prevent socialism. So, by conforming to it, socialists eventually move to the right and cease to be actual socialists.

Since the Democratic Party is a corporate structure created for and controlled by sections of the capitalist class to advance their class interests, it cannot be moved left or transformed from within into a socialist party. The Democratic Party exists to prevent socialism. So, by conforming to it, socialists eventually move to the right and cease to be actual socialists.

Even Francesca Hong walked back her previously held socialist views in favor of defunding the police, abolishing the undemocratic Senate, and opposing the concept of “Thanksgiving” as a holiday that celebrates genocidal settler-colonialism.

Winning office as a socialist within the capitalist political economy also poses major challenges for DSA members. Had Hong won, becoming the governor would mean assuming a position in which you would have to manage the state police, the National Guard, and the state prison system. Would a socialist governor fund or defund these oppressive institutions? Would they deploy state forces to repress social protest movements, like Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and Madison Democratic Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway did during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020? Hong would have been called on to do the same. Socialists, especially within the machinery of the Democratic Party, either have to mobilize the people to take on and defeat the state-repressive apparatus, or they conform to power and become “responsible managers” of the capitalist state. It is the latter position that wins out every time.  

Within a day after her narrow defeat, Francesca Hong was seen eating and laughing with David Crowley and a host of Democratic Party politicians including Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin. Baldwin is a Zionist, pro-war, and pro-imperialist Democratic senator who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which procures funds and arms for the Israeli Zionist project of genocide against the Palestinian people. Perhaps Hong is willing to break bread and reconcile with imperialists like Baldwin and pro-AI and pro-capitalist conservatives like Crowley to garner support for her next possible campaign. But socialists should never “make peace” or align with the political representatives of our capitalist and imperialist class enemies, or go one inch near the warmongering, imperialist, and capitalist Democratic Party. Socialists need to have socialist principles, maintain class independence, build working class power, and a working-class socialist party. Most importantly, they must fight tooth and nail—and relentlessly and unequivocally— against capitalism and the capitalist state, and for the working class and oppressed people.