Conventional wisdom suggests that if State Rep. Francesca Hong is going to win Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, she must dominate Madison and somehow find a way to carry Milwaukee. But history suggests that’s the wrong way to look at the race.
Former Governor Tony Evers provided the blueprint in the 2018 Democratic primary. In a similarly crowded primary field, Evers won the nomination comfortably, earning 41.8% of the vote. The next-closest candidate was Mahlon Mitchell, the President of the Professional Fire Fighters labor union, who ran unsuccessfully in the recall election against then-Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. Mitchell finished a distant second behind Evers, earning just 16.4% of the vote.
While Evers cruised to victory, he did not dominate Milwaukee County. In fact, Mahlon Mitchell narrowly edged him there. The difference was that Evers kept Milwaukee competitive while building a broad coalition across the rest of the state, winning nearly every other major media market on his way to victory.
Hong’s coalition is likely to look very different from Evers’, but the underlying math may be surprisingly similar.
Unlike Evers, Hong appears positioned to run up enormous margins in the Madison media market. As the hometown candidate and the clear favorite of many progressive activists, she could substantially outperform Evers’ 38.8 percent showing there in 2018. Fellow Madison native, Kelda Roys, could cut into Hong’s base of support in Dane County, though Roys only received 19% of the vote in her home county 8 years ago. If Hong approaches or exceeds 60 percent in the Madison market, she will bank a significant statewide advantage before votes elsewhere are even considered.
The real question is Milwaukee. At first glance, Milwaukee appears to be Hong’s weakest region. But that’s only part of the story. This is David Crowley’s home turf, and with the backing of the establishment, an influx of last-minute donors and an endorsement from Tony Evers, moderates and party faithful have their candidate to coalesce around.
The problem for Crowley is the two former candidates still on the ballot: former Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes and current Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who could have banked a substantial number of early votes that would have gone to Crowley. Barnes had the strongest name identification after his 2022 U.S. Senate campaign, and Rodriguez was gaining ground before her campaign’s stunning implosion. Furthermore, Joel Brennan is a longtime Milwaukee figure who could play spoiler as the pragmatic ‘moderate’ candidate and siphon off a few percentage points from Crowley.
The left’s insistence on weeks of early voting, which saw candidates drop out and one reenter the race, could actually be beneficial to Hong in a part of the state that ordinarily trends towards more establishment-backed candidates.
Hong doesn’t need to win the market. She needs to remain competitive. A second-place finish only a few points behind the leader would likely be good enough, particularly if no single opponent emerges as the dominant alternative. In 2018, Tony Evers finished second in Milwaukee County, trailing Mahlon Mitchell by just under 4 percentage points. If Hong can pull off a similar performance, while running up the score in Madison, she’ll be in great shape the rest of the night.
That shifts the strategic focus to the Green Bay/Fox Valley media market, which may ultimately decide the nomination.
Unlike Milwaukee or Madison, Green Bay lacks an obvious hometown candidate. It is also the state’s third-largest media market and accounts for a meaningful share of the Democratic primary electorate (nearly 15% of primary votes, according to 2018 election data). In 2018, Evers dominated the Green Bay market–receiving over 50% of the total vote there. If Hong can either win the market outright or finish a close second in a fragmented race, she would deny any rival the opportunity to build a second geographic base outside Milwaukee.
Conversely, Crowley must dominate the Milwaukee media market. This is non-negotiable. He must convert his home-base advantage into a decisive raw-vote lead that offsets Hong’s Madison haul. A split field Barnes and Rodriguez residual + Roys/Brennan could hurt his chances. But the margin still has to be large for the hometown candidate.
The remaining media markets may be even more favorable to Hong than many observers assume.
Conventional political wisdom often treats central and northern Wisconsin Democrats as inherently more moderate, or more persuadable. But August primaries are driven by highly engaged voters, not general election electorates. Hong has spent months campaigning across northern and western Wisconsin, appearing at county party events, forums and local Democratic gatherings. That organizational investment could allow her to outperform expectations in markets like Wausau-Rhinelander and Eau Claire-La Crosse, where university communities and activist networks play an outsized role in Democrat primaries. These media markets combined accounted for nearly 16% of the Democrat primary vote in 2018.
In other words, Hong does not necessarily need to recreate Evers’ geographically broad coalition. She needs to maximize a different one.
If she dominates Madison, avoids getting blown out in Milwaukee, finishes strong in Green Bay/Fox Valley, and converts her organizing efforts into victories across western and northern Wisconsin, she not only has a realistic path to the Democratic nomination, but could easily run away with it—even without carrying Wisconsin’s largest media market.
Crowley’s path to a plurality (or narrow win) requires him to pick the lock by winning Milwaukee by a clear margin and, at minimum, staying competitive in Green Bay/Fox Valley. Wausau-Rhinelander is too small to serve as a meaningful offset. Even if Crowley won it decisively, the raw votes gained would be limited. Anything short of a strong Milwaukee performance leaves him needing an unlikely surge in the remaining markets.
Madison belongs to Hong under this scenario — Crowley’s only realistic path is to make Milwaukee the decisive counterweight. A weak showing in Milwaukee allows Hong’s Madison margin to become decisive. But if she can pair a dominant showing in Madison with a competitive finish in Milwaukee and a strong performance in Green Bay/Fox Valley, it might be an earlier night than many Democrats expect on August 11th.
