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Democratic socialist Francesca Hong still picks up bartending shifts. She says that is where she hears the version of the economy that does not show up on cable news.
"It's not as simple as putting food on the table," Hong told Newsweek in an exclusive interview. "It's about putting a bill on hold, or you're hearing about more people putting grocery costs on credit, people wondering if they're going to get to go on vacation, people wondering if they're going to get laid off because of AI."
Hong, a 37-year-old state representative from Madison and a former restaurant owner, is two days from a Democratic primary for governor that public polling suggests she will win comfortably.
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She is also running to lead a state President Donald Trump carried in 2016 and again in 2024.
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Hong and the Pitch
Hong entered the race last September as a little-known member of the state Assembly's Socialist Caucus. She now leads every public poll of the primary field.
Her platform is built around what she calls "permanent affordability," a phrase that has become a rallying cry for insurgent Democrats since the surprise victory of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in 2025. She says it includes free childcare, fully funding public schools, higher taxes on the ultrawealthy and corporations, and a moratorium on new data centers.
"I think you have to launch your campaign thinking that there's always a chance you can win," Hong said. "Here in Wisconsin, I always say that I remain cautiously and sometimes nauseously optimistic that Democrats will continue to win power."
She said the stress she hears about while behind the bar does not reduce to talking points. Her answer to that, she said, is organizing. She cited more than 300 events across the state and nearly 50,000 miles traveled.
"Our campaign is building a working-class movement demanding better from government," Hong said.
She also framed her campaign as a challenge to the Trump administration, saying that if elected she would use "the full force of the executive to protect all Wisconsinites." That stance includes a hard line on immigration enforcement, as Mamdani has done in New York City.
"I do not plan on cooperating and working with ICE," she said.
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Winning in a Purple State
Wisconsin has decided its last three presidential elections by roughly a point. Hong argues the state that voted for Trump 21 months ago is not the state she is running in now.
"What has changed is that lives have just gotten harder and harder for everyday people across the state," she said, pointing to gas prices, property taxes and grocery bills.
She cited the April 7 election in which Chris Taylor won an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by about 20 percentage points, 60 percent to 40 percent, expanding the court's liberal majority to 5-2.
"A double-digit win is a landslide," Hong said.
Taylor won a majority in 42 of Wisconsin's 72 counties and flipped suburban Ozaukee County, which then-Vice President Kamala Harris lost with 43.9 percent in 2024.
Republicans have argued the comparison does not hold. Turnout in April was about one in three voting-age residents, well below the 2025 court race.
However, Hong says the pattern is about anger, not the calendar.
"Working class folks are harnessing this frustration and this anger and demanding that there are elected officials in a government that is taking action," she said. "It's about delivering the solutions that actually match the scale and speed in which the struggles of people's lives are growing."
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The Electability Question
Hong's critics have spent the final weeks of the Democratic primary less focused on whether she can win Tuesday than on whether she can win in November.
Republicans, rival Democrats and, in the closing stretch, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, have questioned whether her progressive record would leave her vulnerable against Wisconsin Representative Tom Tiffany, a Republican.
Evers, who said for months he would stay neutral, endorsed Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley three weeks before the primary, after Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez left the race and Crowley reentered it.
"I think she's in a tough place. She has spent her entire campaign dealing not with the issues, but what's on the Twitter," Evers told FOX6 Milwaukee on Thursday.
Hong said she does not know what Evers tells voters about her but pointed to his earlier comments that she is talented. Her campaign said attention to years-old social media posts had crowded out her policy agenda.
Asked about a 2020 post calling for Thanksgiving to be canceled as a celebration of colonialism, Hong said she would not support doing so.
"I'm not going to cancel Thanksgiving, but I know I'm going to be fighting the Republicans who are voting on policies that are making Thanksgiving dinners more expensive," she said.
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On a 2021 post saying police exist to uphold white supremacy, Hong said she does not support defunding police.
"The governor cannot defund the police, and I won't defund the police," she said, adding that she supports investments in crime prevention and law enforcement training.
Tiffany has called her "a card-carrying socialist committed to abolishing the police, the Senate, and prisons," and has criticized her appearances with Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar and online streamer Hasan Piker.
Hong said she does not embrace the full national platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
"I have concerns around abolishing the Senate," she said. "We have an opportunity to elect candidates like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed into the Senate to fight for issues like Medicare for All. I don't want us to miss out on opportunities to deliver for working class people. So that is where I disagree with the platform."
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Yet, her answers have drawn criticism from some Democrats. Former Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on X that "many people watching are going to conclude that if she is our nominee, we're going to lose Wisconsin," after Hong declined to directly disavow her Thanksgiving post during a CNN interview. Axelrod had earlier described the primary as "a slow-rolling car headed for a cliff."
Crowley, Hong's chief rival, has also argued Democrats risk nominating a candidate who lacks the experience, record and coalition needed to win a statewide general election. She dismissed the criticism, arguing that her platform is broadly popular.
"The issues, these are things that are electable, and the person who wins the most votes is the most electable," she said. "Fully funding public schools is a unifying universal electable issue."
A Broader Democratic Debate after Michigan
Her defense comes as Democrats continue debating the lessons of El-Sayed's narrow Michigan Senate primary victory over Representative Haley Stevens. El-Sayed won despite roughly $65 million in outside spending and a late endorsement of Stevens by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
"I believe the many overcoming the money," Hong said.
But Democratic strategists like Axelrod said the Michigan result also highlighted the challenges facing candidates on the party's left flank. Speaking on NPR's Morning Edition, Axelrod said midterm elections often become referendums on the sitting president and warned that Republicans could use DSA membership and progressive allies to shift attention away from Trump and the economy. He noted that El-Sayed performed strongly among young and highly educated voters but struggled with rural and Black voters.
"We are held to different standards," Hong said. "That's only going to motivate me to make sure to fight harder for the people of Wisconsin."
Despite skepticism from some Democrats, Hong has led five consecutive Marquette University Law School polls. The latest survey, conducted July 22-27 among 407 Democratic primary voters, showed Hong with 38 percent support, followed by former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes at 16 percent and Crowley at 7 percent, while 34 percent remained undecided.
A State Navigate survey of 1,085 likely primary voters conducted July 23-26 and sponsored by UpNorthNews and Main Street Action showed Hong with 44 percent, followed by Crowley at 15 percent and Barnes at 14 percent.
Barnes, however, ended his campaign on July 30. An internal poll released this week by Crowley's campaign showed Hong leading by 18 points.
Hong's support has been strongest among younger voters. In last month's Marquette poll, 43 percent of Democratic primary voters ages 18 to 29 backed her, compared with 9 percent of voters 60 and older. She also won support from 45 percent of voters favorable toward democratic socialism, compared with 8 percent among those unfavorable toward the movement.
The Marquette survey also found Trump's approval rating in Wisconsin at 40 percent, with 58 percent disapproving, his lowest mark in the poll during either term. Among likely voters, 84 percent of Democrats said they were certain to vote in November, compared with 79 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of independents.
The general election is November 3.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Jason Lemon and Anthony Murray.
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