Tonight, Wisconsin Democrats stage their only televised primary debate in Milwaukee, just two weeks before the August 11 primary. Francesca Hong, Mandela Barnes, David Crowley, Joel Brennan, and Kelda Roys will take the stage, hoping to out-progressive each other to a statewide audience and make their final case before the election.
Expect the usual: reheated ‘affordability’ platitudes, vague claims about fully funding public schools, and obligatory Trump-bashing. But these candidates come with baggage, and their records are not so easily whitewashed. Here are the questions that actually matter, the ones the mainstream moderators will tiptoe around for fear of offending the progressive priesthood.
Francesca Hong
The socialist frontrunner still owns her 2020–2021 posts calling to “defund the police as a first step towards abolishing the police” and declaring “Police exist to uphold white supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.” She’s also called for the abolition of the US Senate. She’s never deleted these takes. After a recent Madison officer-involved shooting of a man with a knife, she called it an “execution.” She has demanded the “immediate abolition” of ICE and said she would end Wisconsin cooperation with federal joint terrorism task forces. She also backs a statewide moratorium on new data centers.
Questions:
Do you still want to abolish police departments and prisons, or was that just 2020 theater? How about the US Senate?
How does abolishing ICE work when criminal aliens are already in state custody?
Why put a statewide moratorium on the data-center projects if local communities want to allow them, increase their tax base, and create jobs?
David Crowley
The late re-entry candidate — now carrying Tony Evers’ endorsement — is tied to the old “Dirt McGirk” X account registered in his name. The bio read “A different side of me…” Posts from 2010–2014 contained crude sexual language, racial slurs, and anti-gay remarks. One 2010 post stated, “Follow No_pork_plz for those who don’t know it’s DC aka David bka Dirty or black *** dude.” Birthday posts further undercut the claim that “10–12 other people” ran it. Crowley condemns the language but insists he didn’t write the worst of it. He suspended his campaign, endorsed Sara Rodriguez, then jumped back in after her finances scandal forced her out of the race.
Questions:
Which specific Dirt McGirk posts did you write? Why should voters trust a candidate whose own birthday posts appear in the first person on that account?
After quitting and then re-entering once Rodriguez’s campaign cratered, is this a genuine electability play or an establishment salvage operation to stop Hong?
Why do you think you have a path to win the primary after dropping out earlier in the month?
Mandela Barnes
The 2022 Senate nominee who lost to Ron Johnson by roughly one point spent nearly $600,000 in taxpayer funds on a state police security detail while progressive groups pushing “defund” rhetoric backed him. He once called the founding of the United States “awful.”
Questions:
Which of those 2020–2022 positions have you repudiated, and which do you still hold?
After a narrow loss despite heavy national Democratic money, what concrete failures make you stronger against Tom Tiffany than you were against Johnson?
You founded The Long Run PAC. After your loss to Ron Johnson in 2022, how many candidates did your PAC ‘invest in’? Why did 85% of the PAC’s funding go to administrative costs, consultants, and salaries?
Kelda Roys
The longtime Madison progressive has called Trump’s ICE “incompatible with a free society” and said it “should be abolished.” She supports phasing out private-school vouchers, restoring public-sector collective bargaining rights gutted by Act 10, and raising the minimum wage on a path to $20 an hour.
Questions:
In order to win the WEAC endorsement, you pledged to end the voucher program. What do you say to minority families that rely on the program to get their children the best education possible?
In December 2024, United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson was ambushed and brutally murdered in New York City by a psychotic leftist who believed that Thompson’s health insurance company literally was killing people. In your most recent ad, you claimed Trump and Republicans are ‘trying to kill us.’ Do you truly believe that, or was that political theatre?
Joel Brennan
The only white male still in the field said on a podcast that Wisconsin is “not there yet” when it comes to electing a non-white or female governor based purely on qualifications. He later walked it back. He then ran an ad arguing Hong, Barnes, and Crowley are unelectable against Tiffany while omitting the other white candidate (Roys). Activists and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Black caucus called the ad racist.
Questions:
Is your theory that Democratic primary voters should prioritize electability over identity?
As the establishment figure in a party increasingly driven by identity politics, can a white male centrist still win this primary without being accused of “whiteness” as a liability?
None of this is a ‘gotcha.’ These are the candidates’ own words, their own records, and their own digital fingerprints. Hong’s anti-police and anti-ICE posts are still up for all to see. Crowley’s old Twitter account is his, whether he blames his dead friends for the content or not. Barnes’ close 2022 loss and scam PAC accusations are out there. Roys’ anti-Republican rhetoric is on the airwaves. Brennan’s electability musings and ad are out there as well. The receipts are everywhere.
Wisconsin is still a battleground. Bumper-sticker slogans abolishing federal law enforcement, bashing Trump, and identity-first politics come with a price tag in the general election. Before the August primary locks in the nominee, voters deserve to see these candidates answer for their records, not just their talking points.
