Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Rep. Francesca Hong endured a brutal stretch this week as a series of her past and present radical positions collided with fresh scrutiny, internal party pushback, and even attacks from the farther-left fringe of her own primary.
The week began with far-left brewer and democrat gubernatorial rival Kirk Bangstad, known exclusively for his own inflammatory “Free Beer Day” rhetoric and Super PAC controversies, sniping at Hong as she was forced to walk back her posts on X supporting defunding and abolishing the police. As a socialist, she even made the critical mistake of speaking with Fox News Digital, saying, “I don’t like crime. I don’t like unsafe streets.” Bangstad accused her of being naive and having her campaign controlled by consultants as he attempts to encroach on her far-left lane in the Democrat primary.
Following that initial walk back, Hong released a video widely viewed as classic damage control due to her past calls to “defund then abolish” the police. In a 2020 post, she had written that she supports “defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police” and described police as existing “to uphold white supremacy.” When pressed this week on whether she still supports abolishing police departments, Hong’s campaign released a video that looked more like a forced statement from a hostage video than an actual policy pivot.
Compounding the pressure, we here at the Heartland Post uncovered an October 2025 appearance on a left-wing podcast in which Hong pledged that, if elected governor, she would deploy the Wisconsin National Guard to arrest ICE agents carrying out federal immigration enforcement. She framed ICE operations as “state-sanctioned violence” and said, “You have to meet state-sanctioned violence with parts of the state sometimes.” A progressive pipe dream that is wildly unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause and a gross abuse of state power.
The pile-on continued Friday when Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journo Molly Beck reported that Hong told a Taylor County crowd earlier this month she envisions “a perfect world” without prisons “because we all see the humanity in one another and then we know nobody’s disposable.” A Hong spokeswoman responded with a quote that felt like a lyric from John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’: “a world where needs are met, and there’s no need for prisons, sounds like a goal worth working towards,” while adding that Hong also supports increased funding for mental health services, education, and job training inside prisons. Ironic, if Hong abolishes the prisons, where would she house all the arrested ICE agents? Democratic rival state Sen. Kelda Roys quickly pounced on social media, quoting the report and listing “Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump. Bernie Madoff. Harvey Weinstein.” as examples of who would not face prison and walk free under such a vision.
Of course, we can’t forget about Carlos LeMar Dixon, a self-described anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist independent write-in candidate, who had been filming himself stealing Hong’s campaign yard signs in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood. Dixon posted videos on Facebook describing his actions as “taking signs for ransom as hostage” as a form of “political dissent” against capitalism, the establishment, and Zionism. Hong responded on Facebook that “yard signs are freedom of speech. Plus they’re expensive as heck,” while her campaign ordered 1,000 replacements and declined to press charges.
For anyone with a decent political sense and who knows that journos like Molly Beck won’t attack a democrat candidate unless it’s at the service of another democrat, see the barrage as an indicator that elements within the Democrat establishment are desperately working to sideline Hong. While her radical, unapologetic socialist positions and “abolish the police”/“no prisons” rhetoric may consolidate support among the hard-left terminally online base that turns out in low-turnout primaries, the same stances are viewed by many party strategists as toxic in a general election against Republican Tom Tiffany. Polling has shown her leading a fragmented Democratic field but with soft support that could evaporate once independents and moderate Democrats focus on the race.
Hong’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week have highlighted the tension at the heart of the 2026 Democrat primary: the farther-left lane is crowded and vicious, with candidates and activists willing to attack one another from the left even as party elites and insiders appear wary of nominating someone whose record on policing, immigration enforcement, and criminal justice would hand Republicans a devastating general-election weapon. Whether Hong can weather the storm as more clips resurface or if she’ll become the latest example of a candidate too radical even for her own party’s nomination machinery remains the central question heading into the final stretch before the August primary.
