Democratic Socialists pick up three big victories in this week's New York City primaries.
Could that momentum carry all the way to Wisconsin?
And the field of Democrats running for governor here finally shrinks.
What is the signal about the race?
This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.
I'm Sean Johnson, here with Anya Van Wechtendank, and Rich Kramer in Eau Claire.
Hey, gang.
Hey, Sean.
So our show this week needs a little bit of setup.
We are, of course, focused on primaries in Wisconsin, but we are looking for clues this
week from primaries that happened in New York.
So Anya, what did happen there?
Yeah, there were a number of congressional primaries, including three candidates who
received the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a socialist.
Two of those candidates also received endorsements from the Democratic Socialists of America,
which is a group that he's also affiliated with, and all three of those candidates won.
In one case, kicking out an incumbent, some of them were political outsiders, so this
was really in some ways an upset and a little bit of a validation for Mamdani, this kind
of further left mayor, for the power that he shows in this significant blue area.
And so a lot of people, as you say, are kind of looking at that as tea leaves for what
that says about the Democratic primary right now and what voters want in their blue candidates.
And I think that you would see states, or people in any state, where Democrats have a
plausible shot at winning, asking these same questions.
So why are we asking it here, though, or what's kind of arthred, where it feels like, hey,
this could really be significant this year.
Right. Obviously, there are many differences between New York City and the state of Wisconsin,
but one of the things that there is kind of in commonality here is that we have this crowded
Democratic race for governor, as we've mentioned.
And one candidate from there, Francesca Hong, is sort of in that same vein as Mamdani and
these kind of, she identifies as a socialist, as a Democratic socialist, she's part of that
caucus in the legislature.
And so when we kind of look at who is going to stand out among this field of now six Democratic
candidates, we wonder kind of to what extent these victories for these further left candidates
means that Fran Hong will stand out among Democrats.
And then what does that mean in a more general election, where, again, a Wisconsin general
election is very different than a New York City primary election?
So we're going to get back to the primary for governor here in just a minute, but Rich,
this was a congressional primary in New York, or congressional primaries, rather.
I wonder how we're seeing this play out, if at all, in Democratic primaries here in
Wisconsin for Congress, you are covering one in the third congressional district in Western
Wisconsin.
You just covered a forum there where there is a Democratic primary.
Do you see any parallels there, or is it a different ball game?
It feels like a different ball game.
I mean, for one, there aren't any DSA candidates in the race for the third congressional district,
but there are some similarities in one way.
So we've got two candidates, and one seems to be trying to portray yourself as the more
progressive of the two.
And one is trying to, or is acting like she's the more moderate candidate.
So these two people are Emily Berge, she's the former city council president of Eau Claire,
has been on the city council for a long time.
So these, the one that during the forum that was last week in Plattville, was offering
up some more of what you would expect progressive candidates to say.
For example, Berge called for Medicare for All, which is universal health care, essentially.
And she said that she would, she bowed to impeach President Donald Trump if she were elected
or support the impeachment.
The other candidate is Rebecca Cook, who has, this is her third run essentially for
the third congressional district.
And she was more reserved in answering those questions.
For example, on Medicare for All, she said, she said she'd love to sign up for all of
these aspirational goals, but she said that it's more likely that if Democrats win the
House majority back, they would go more towards expanding tax credits for the Affordable
Care Act that were passed by Democrats during the earlier years of the COVID pandemic.
And she said, so that would be the immediate first step.
And on impeachment, she said, well, the devil is in the details of what that resolution
would look like.
So those were two of the differences that I noticed right away.
And then another difference that predates the debate by many months, the House Democrats'
national campaign arm essentially endorsed Rebecca Cook like months ago.
And they've offered her support, they've offered her staff, training, et cetera.
And Berge has since said and said during the forum that, you know, it shouldn't be national
Democrats picking who represents the people of the Third District.
It should be voters themselves.
So that's one way that it stood out from what happened in New York, but there's still
kind of two candidates trying to pick their lanes.
And it feels like one is going more of the progressive lane and the other is trying to
go a little bit more moderate.
I think that push-pull between national Democrats and these more kind of, we know our community.
We are kind of the progressive wing.
It was also on display in New York.
A number of the candidates who were defeated were backed by these national Democratic groups
that Rich was just talking about.
And so again, while we're trying to see how our Democrats feeling, how are they kind of
leaning going into what they are hoping broadly to be a wave election, like who are they putting
their money behind as the people who can deliver that?
And so in New York, part of the answer was people whose policies do fall a little bit
to the left.
It's really interesting to see in the governor's race and in some of these competitive congressional
races here in Wisconsin, what do Wisconsin Democrats, where do they put their money behind?
I guess the thing that strikes me is that the thing that's missing in Wisconsin is that
you don't have a massively powerful endorsement, it seems, as they did in New York from Mayor
Mondami, who came in and said, this is what it means to be a Democrat right now.
This is my slate.
Essentially, these are my people.
And it seems to have worked.
Is there anything like that in, let's say, the third congressional district for Emily
Berge?
Is there somebody like that coming in and saying, this is the progressive choice?
Not that I know of.
Meanwhile, Cook has gotten all kinds of endorsements from sitting members of Congress, the Senate,
et cetera, and also the backing of the national party and a whole number of third party groups
as well.
I'm not aware of any big endorsements.
Actually, the endorsements that Berge has been promoting have been from essentially local
government, city council, county board, school boards, et cetera.
So I guess I'm wondering if that person who could move the field like that even exists
in Wisconsin for Wisconsin Democrats, I mean, the state party is staying out of this race
for governor.
They have massive financial resources and could tip the field potentially if they wanted
to.
They're definitely not going there.
We have a Democratic governor who has some power.
He's not being vocal with his endorsements.
Is this power vacuum sort of leaving us up in the air about what's going to happen?
Yeah.
We've talked about this a little bit in the context of Republicans because there is such
a clear leader of the party and in President Donald Trump.
And so Democrats don't quite have that for many reasons, including that they don't hold
these majorities in Washington.
They don't hold the White House.
But I think also this really is a little bit of like an existentially exploratory time
for Democrats, both here in Wisconsin, where they are facing the best odds that they've
had in a long time of getting some real legislative power.
But then nationally, seeing there were other primaries that took place on Tuesday as well
outside of New York, where more moderate Democrats won one issue that was really prevalent
in a lot of these races was Israel and the war in Gaza and how that is playing out how
that's kind of dividing up the Democratic party.
We've seen that a little bit in like Milwaukee politics where that's played a real issue.
I don't know to what extent that will be important statewide.
And so that could be one place where Wisconsin's politics, obviously, of course, are naturally
very 50-50 purple stance could look really different than some of these places where Democrats
feel a little bit safer, like we know we're going to get one of our guys in.
So let's try to really move the needle on what that looks like.
So I got to say, as somebody who's covered Wisconsin politics for a while now, it's
still a little bit jarring to me to see people just self-identify as Democratic socialist,
for example.
I think five years ago, I wasn't seeing that.
But I remember Anya, one of the first stories you did when you came to Wisconsin Public
Radio was about this socialist caucus in the Wisconsin legislature where, you know, for
years, it was Republicans who were calling Democrats socialists, and they were like,
no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not, we're just, we're Democrats.
And now Democrats are saying, yeah, we are, that's who we represent.
That's our values.
Yeah.
And like you say, I was, I think, truly a week into my career in 2023, it was a new legislative
session.
And these two assembly members from Milwaukee, they, you know, they caucus with the Democrats,
but they identify as part of the socialist caucus.
That caucus now has grown, I'm going to get the number wrong, but it's something like
seven or eight people.
And so it's, it's not small.
And you're right that there are especially Republican members who will sometimes be so
outraged at this idea that there are people who are identifying as socialists.
But then you also, you know, when I go again to a Francesca Hong rally, that's something
that people see as a, as a reason that they support her.
And so it is one of those things that, yeah, the term can either be an insult or it can
be an endorsement depending on who's leveling it.
Her basic message seems to be, these are dire times, we need a new kind of politics.
Rich, I do think that Republicans have a different take when it comes to this stuff, though,
as they, as you've, as you've seen them react to the results in New York City and what's
going on here in Wisconsin, how do they feel about it?
Well based on what I've seen from, I guess, some of the talking heads on social media,
I could sum it up as this, all Democrats are socialists, that's what Republicans are
trying to pitch right now to voters.
Obviously, we know that there's all kinds of degrees to being a Republican, you know,
conservative, liberal, et cetera.
I mean, just a million different stripes out there, but Republicans are excited about Hong
maybe being the nominee in Wisconsin because they think that that'll give them the best
shot at making sure that Tom Tiffany wins.
And in fact, they have been pointing to this one, one poll that came out weeks and weeks
ago, maybe longer, that showed head-to-head match-ups with all of the Democratic candidates.
At the time, there were the seven major candidates.
And literally the only one in that poll that lost to, or that, that Tiffany wouldn't have
lost to, again, it's all theoretical, and it only, I guess, represents what people
who took the survey felt on that day, but it was Francesca Hong.
And so not only are they literally talking about, well, we hope that this is the nominee,
there are also some, some Republicans are saying, hey, why don't you go out and meddle
in that primary, vote for Hong, you know, cross over, because the other primaries on
the GOP side aren't as big of a deal.
I literally saw a post last night saying the race for governor is the whole game.
So Republicans go cross over, vote for Hong, that'll make it easier for Tiffany in the
general.
So yeah, there are politics sometimes when you're attacking opponents, you like to paint
with a broad brush.
So they're seeing this rise up of some of these Democratic socialist candidates around
America.
And they're saying, well, look.
This is Democrats in disarray.
This is proof that the party has moved to the left, et cetera, et cetera.
I wish we had more polling right now on this race.
You look back at the recent public poll and it's like in March in terms of Marquette polls,
for example, I have a feeling though that you might have a lot of people saying, I haven't
heard enough about the candidates and I haven't made it my mind.
It's June.
Leave me alone.
But let's talk about the field.
We had a seven candidate Democratic primary this week shrink to a six candidate primary.
Can we still use the word crowded when we're talking about that?
It's big anyway for a primary field.
So pretty crowded, I'm sorry.
Miss Hughes dropped out the former CEO of the state's economic development agency.
She immediately endorsed Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez.
This is just an open question.
How big a deal was this?
Well, you know, we've been talking for weeks about are we going to see any dropouts before
August?
And so this was the first one.
It was definitely a bit of breaking news.
And I think one of the things that we've been talking about so much is this idea of
lanes and how these candidates can kind of stand out and make themselves seem, you know,
picking me would be different than picking anyone else.
And so I think in her statement and then an interview she gave after, Miss Hughes kind
of, she spoke about the ways that Democrats are going to hurt each other if they are
trying to, if they are taking up space that could be taken up by somebody else.
She said she hopes to see other people drop out.
And so I think that is a little bit of a nod to the fact that they need that while Democrats
are trying to figure out who they are trying to be, what they are trying to represent,
and how do I beat Tom Tiffany or other people who are picked by Donald Trump?
What does that look like for the Democrats?
And so I think this was a signal that one person at least made that calculus of what
was good for the party and then how to kind of throw her power and her weight behind that.
Rich?
I would say that it's not that big of a deal.
It doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me because Hughes wasn't pulling very high
and running for office, even running a primary, it's very expensive.
So I have no idea why she decided to step down or out of the race.
But the endorsement of is something.
But again, there are still six people in the race and I'll just say that Hughes dropping
out.
She was essentially a pro-business kind of a Democrat, talked a lot about how if you improve
the economy, you can improve people's lives with these other programs and et cetera.
But the Republicans have said, well, look, if more proof, they're pushing the moderates
out.
So it's all a word game, I guess.
But big picture, I'm not sure it makes a huge deal.
She was the kind of candidate who you could imagine in a Democratic year like we could
be headed toward in the Trump midterm.
If she was the general election candidate, you could imagine someone like Missy Hughes
winning and become a governor.
But in a Democratic primary, pitching that business message, especially at this moment
in time, it seemed like a hard sell.
She also did go for that moderate lane a little bit there a month or so ago when she was the
only one who came out really in support of that failed surplus deal that was negotiated
by Tony Evers and Robin Voss among other Republicans in the legislature.
The other thing that made her unique is that she comes from Western Wisconsin.
That's right.
She's the only one.
Right.
This sort of bastion of Democratic politics has moved very far away from that.
Every other candidate is Milwaukee or Madison.
And so it's also, I think, a little bit of a signifier that she was not able to make
much of a splash even with that more rural, farmer-focused Western Wisconsin background
that, again, as we look at where is the party going, that it seems to be going towards
the major basis of Milwaukee County, Dane County.
Okay.
Another open question here, I guess.
Is there any connection, do you think, to the Francesca Hong story that we've been talking
about and Missy Hughes endorsing someone like Sarah Rodriguez?
Is she making a bet that, look, this candidate's politics kind of aligns with mine, we got
to unite and stop the candidates from the left?
I mean, I don't know what's in her heart.
Sure.
I would never guess.
But, again, from this idea of not wanting to kind of crowd out people who are similar
to you, who have similar politics, who you think could do a good and effective job in making
those politics a reality.
If you have one quite popular candidate who is Francesca Hong, again, polling shows
her towards the top, and then you have a number of people kind of further towards
the center, all fighting amongst themselves, right?
Missy Hughes voters and Fran Hong voters were probably never going to, you know, nobody's
vacillating between those two candidates.
And so that's maybe a way of trying to bring some more strength into the not democratic
socialist wing of the Democratic Party, going into what's expected to just be an incredibly
tight general election.
She did say something in her press conference where she endorsed Sarah Rodriguez.
She can't come out there and say, hey, I'm kind of the moderate candidate.
I support her.
But she said, we don't need, we got a lot of good things going on in this state.
We don't need to tear it all down.
So that, to me, is a signal that she supports the kind of politics, which is similar to
what we've got already in Wisconsin, including the Evers administration, which she and she
and Sarah Rodriguez have served under.
So that's all the time we have today.
Thanks for joining us.
Our colleague Zach Schultz will be back next week.
This has been Inside Wisconsin Politics.
Be sure to follow us on pbswisconsin.org, wpr.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.