From TPM Reader AB …
I am but one anecdotal data point from Wisconsin, but as a politically engaged liberal in Madison, I’ve had plenty of conversations in the last week that align with your suppositions of how Crowley won.
While I don’t really identify as a Socialist, I am highly motivated to support ‘socialist’ projects and see them implemented. I put ‘socialist’ in quotes, because public education, fire dept, and public libraries are all socialist projects — but also pretty basic services.
That said, for much of the primary, I was all in for Hong — she campaigned relentlessly and leveraged social media deftly, and she was meeting the moment with the piss and vinegar and fight that so many of us crave in this moment. She was also the first and only candidate on the Dem side to take a stand on Data Centers, calling for a 1 year moratorium (ironically, the only candidate in the gubernatorial race to support a 100% ban on data centers was Tom Tiffany’s opponent in the Republican Primary, Andrew Manske).
Her focus on Data Centers dovetailed nicely with her redistributive agenda, by slyly invoking data centers as avatars of the billionaires making our financial lives worse, and now also coming to make our neighborhoods noisy and electricity more expensive; offering 500 constructions jobs in the short term towards a project (AI) who’s endgame is to replace humans in the labor force. She was hitting on issues that actually resonated across party lines.
As her momentum grew, and the establishment grew more disarrayed (Rodriquez and Barnes scandals and subsequent dropping out, Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan failing to generate ANY enthusiasm for their campaigns (despite a terrific debate performance from Brennan), Crowley re-entered the race as the last hope to head off Hong — and that happened right as National outlets started paying a LOT more attention to Hong, her past tweets and current positions.
It turned out that Hong, even with relatively friendly interviewers (like on Pod Save America), did not have polished or convincing responses to her past tweets re: “Cancel Thanksgiving” “Abolish the Police” and “Old WHite People Make Me Anxious”. You could see the Tiffany ads writing themselves. The more interviews and exposure she got, it also became clear she was not as charismatic or talented a communicator as Abdul Al-Sayed.
This was also all roughly concurrent with the police killing of Corey Ruiz in Hong’s Madison district. The response to this killing was relatively unified — shock that a man was shot three times in the head on a Madison street, frustration at yet another Police killing. On the day of the shooting, protesters marched to the Capitol square where a free public concert from Madison Symphony Orchestra (Concerts on the Square) was beginning. That crowd is overwhelmingly white and privileged and insulated from the violence that had happened that day. But Madison is also pretty liberal, and the MSO cancelled the concert in solidarity with the protesters — acknowledging that it was discordant with the moment of mourning and anger. Many attendees were disappointed by the cancellation, but also recognized that it was appropriate. There was, as I say, a relatively unified response to the killing. But that didn’t last long.
The intersection where Ruiz was killed became an occupied encampment, closing local businesses, re-routing public transportation, and sometimes accosting local residents. The City tolerated this encampment for two weeks, even as public sentiment turned against the encampment — the story ceased to be about the police killing of Ruiz, and became about the encampment.
In the midst of all this, while other candidates offered more measured statements of concern, Hong declared it an “execution”, while the official reports indicated that Ruiz had injured multiple police officers with a knife while resisting arrest. (Cell Phone video clearly shows the 3 shots to the head from multiple angles, but it is more difficult to see the knife in those videos, and because the Mayor and Madison Common Council voted against police body cams, we don’t have that perspective).
In multiple conversations with friends, and reading various subreddits, I started to see many folks feeling like the moment was a test of Hong’s leadership ability — and she failed. What plays in her district does not play at the state level (and not even at the city level, for that matter).
The drumbeat from Gov Tony Evers and the establishment that Hong was a gift to Trump and Tiffany started to resonate. Her inability to convincingly address previous inflammatory tweets, her response to the Ruiz killing only re-enforced this. In the waning days, there were also articles about how AOC and Sanders (who endorsed and campaigned with Al-Sayed) had stayed away from Hong.
I wrestled with my decision, I was prepared to vote for Hong right up until election day — but standing in the school gym filling in my ballot, I voted for Crowley. I had lost confidence that Hong could win statewide.
I truly and deeply hope that we won’t have a Hong equivalent of 2016’s “Bernie Bros” who take their ball and go home– we’ll need them to defeat Tiffany. Hong’s 40% polling and 40% vote share indicate that there is a real appetite for a more progressive direction for our state — I hope Crowley recognizes that and gives Hong voters reason to support him, too.
