In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion, overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the authority to regulate abortion to the states. The Dobbs decision did more than alter constitutional law. It gave Democratic candidates and voters a concrete, emotional issue that drove turnout. Combine that with Republican hubris and a parade of lackluster GOP candidates, and Dobbs helped Democrats defy historical political trends and retain the Senate and limit their losses in the House even as inflation soared and the president’s approval ratings tanked in the midterms. Abortion, weaponized as a rallying cry, became a concrete, emotional motivator that moved previously soft supporters and independents to the polls.
Now, the pendulum is swinging the other way in 2026. Democrats are doubling down on socialism, parading candidates who wear the label with pride. Those candidates may be winning primaries in deep blue seats, but here’s the reality: Democrats are jumping to the wrong conclusion about socialists winning in far-left progressive enclaves. Overall, Americans reject socialism. Gallup data from late 2025 found only 39 percent of Americans hold a positive view of socialism, with Republican support at just 14 percent, and 45 percent said they would be unwilling to vote for a socialist candidate. Communism fares even worse, with support barely scraping double digits and mostly among the indoctrinated youth. These numbers create conditions for a backlash that mirrors Dobbs, but this time the energy favors Republicans.
Democrat gubernatorial contender Francesca Hong has fully embraced the socialist label. Her campaign highlights progressive priorities directly aligned with Democratic Socialists of America talking points: expanded government programs that claim to be “free” and replace private competition, green-energy fantasies, higher taxes on working families and businesses, and a strong “defund and abolish the police and prisons” message. She has celebrated endorsements from U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a figure long associated with the party’s most left-wing faction, and Our Wisconsin Revolution, a progressive grassroots offshoot of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
Let’s not kid ourselves: socialism’s track record is a disaster. Every time a society hands the keys to central planners, the result is the same: shortages, people and capital fleeing for more prosperous states, and freedom trampled under the boot of bureaucracy. From the economic collapse in Venezuela to the documented human costs of 20th-century communist regimes, the pattern is consistent: promises of equity give way to scarcity, corruption, and authoritarian enforcement.
We don’t have to look to Caracas to see socialism’s failures—just glance at Minnesota, with expansive progressive programs that have already shown vulnerability to waste and fraud. Minnesota’s new paid family and medical leave program, sold as modest and sustainable, already faces cost overruns and an automatic tax increase within months of launch. The same state continues to grapple with multi-billion-dollar Somali child day care services fraud schemes that exploited lax oversight. Hong’s blueprint of higher taxes on businesses and high earners, launching a state-run bank, BadgerCare for all, jacking up the minimum wage, literal free lunches, and ballooning government benefits reads like a recipe for economic self-sabotage. These policies raise costs for employers, discourage investment, and expand government size at a time when working families are already getting squeezed by inflation and sky-high housing costs.
Hong has consistently supported defunding the police and, in 2020, called it a first step towards abolishing the police. In 2021, she stated that “police exist to uphold white supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.” Those posts remain public. In 2026, she has stood by, describing a “perfect world” or long-term vision “without prisons” and without police, while framing current incarceration practices as abhorrent and supporting legislative packages tied to prison-abolition goals. Communities that experienced sharp increases in crime after 2020 budget cuts and reduced proactive policing have little appetite for repeating the experiment.
These positions sit well outside mainstream opinion. A Gallup survey conducted at the height of the 2020 protests found only 15 percent of Americans supported abolishing the police. Support stood at 27 percent among Democrats, 12 percent among independents, and 1 percent among Republicans. Even “defund” proposals that stopped short of abolition never commanded lasting majorities and quickly became political poison as crime spiked in city after city. Prison abolition draws even less public support and remains largely confined to the radical echo chamber.
Hong’s radical credentials don’t stop at policy. She’s shared the spotlight with Hasan Piker, a far-left socialist streamer notorious for excusing terrorist violence, defending Hamas and Hezbollah, and minimizing the October 7 attacks. Piker has said the U.S. ‘deserved’ 9/11 and hurled vile slurs at Orthodox Jews. Hong may claim she doesn’t endorse every word, but the partnership and fundraising did happen. That’s the company she keeps.
Hong’s open embrace of socialism and her alliances with extremists put her not just outside the mainstream, but outside reality itself. If Dobbs was a wake-up call for the left, Hong’s radicalism is sounding the alarm for everyone else. Her unapologetic push for police and prison abolition, socialist tax-and-spend policies, and cozying up to the farthest fringes gives voters who care about public safety and sanity a clear choice. History shows that when the stakes are this clear, the backlash is fierce; it produces the kind of intense mobilization that can reshape competitive races.
