David Crowley’s campaign released an internal poll Wednesday showing the Milwaukee County executive still trailing democratic socialist Francesca Hong by 21 points in the Democratic primary for governor, despite his high-profile drop-out, re-entry with Governor Evers’ endorsement, and six-figure ad buy.
The PPP survey of 708 likely Democratic primary voters, conducted July 20-22, found Hong at 35%, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes at 15%, and Crowley at 14%. Former WEDC head Missy Hughes registered 5% and Joel Brennan 3%.
A separate internal poll released the same day by Mandela Barnes’ campaign, conducted by Impact Research July 18-20 among 621 likely voters, showed Hong even further ahead at 39%, with Barnes at 26%, Crowley at 11%, state Sen. Kelda Roys at 7%, and Brennan at 6%. Eleven percent were undecided.
These results were released four days after Crowley relaunched his campaign with Governor Evers’ endorsement and aired a television ad accusing Republicans of “propping up candidates they know they can beat.” Crowley had previously suspended his campaign, endorsed Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, then jumped back in after Rodriguez exited amid a campaign-finance scandal. This sequence is widely seen as an establishment effort to prevent Hong’s nomination.
Poll aggregators and pundits noted that even combining Crowley and Barnes’ shares still left them behind Hong, with some questioning why either campaign would release internal data showing their candidate in third place with three weeks left and over 80,000 early ballots already cast.
Hong, Madison’s socialist state representative who has supported abolishing ICE and previously called for abolishing the police, continues to lead in both public and private polls. Crowley, who earlier cited no path to victory when he withdrew, now finds his own data confirms he remains far from contention despite the Evers endorsement and increased advertising.
