Hong Lost. Crowley Won.
Now the Real Test Starts.
A disappointing friend beats a mortal enemy every single time. Anyone telling you different hasn't done the math.
I grew up in a boring Wisconsin city most people outside the state have never heard of. The kind of place whose only claim to national relevance is that Paul Ryan walked the same high school hallways I did. He graduated in the spring of 1988. I started that fall. The teachers were still talking about him. That's Janesville for you. Union town, factory town, a place that used to make Chevys until it didn't anymore, and has been arguing with itself about what comes next ever since.
I have a love-hate relationship with this state. Wisconsin is purple in the truest sense, not the cable news kind of purple where pundits mean "up for grabs," but the kind where your neighbor, your cousin, and the guy at the hardware store all vote differently and still wave at each other. It is exhausting and it is also, I think, the most honest political environment in the country. Nobody here gets to pretend the other side doesn't exist.
I voted for Francesca Hong in the primary. I knew exactly what that vote was going to cost her in the general election narrative before I cast it. I knew her opponents, and eventually Tom Tiffany's people, were going to take three years of old social media posts and turn them into a highlight reel with no context attached. That is how it works now. I voted for her anyway, because I believed she was right on the substance.
Sick leave and child care in this state, and in this country, are out of control. Not "needs a task force" out of control. Structurally broken out of control. Families are choosing between a paycheck and a sick kid every single week, and we have built an economy that treats that as an acceptable cost of doing business. Hong ran on fixing that like she meant it. That mattered to me more than her polish, and I'll be honest, I agreed with most of the past comments that got dragged out as scandal fodder, because I know the context she was reacting to. If you have spent any time in this state as anyone other than a white guy, you have heard some version of "oh, do you speak English?" or "how do you like Wisconsin?" asked in that pleasant, singsong Midwestern voice that lets people say something ugly and still get to think of themselves as nice. Calling that out is not radicalism. It's just paying attention.
"I voted for the proposal, not the polish."
Hong lost. It was close, a matter of a few thousand votes out of a race that came down to delayed absentee ballots in Milwaukee County. She was entitled to request a recount. She didn't. She got on stage and told her supporters the work they did would be remembered, and that the fight continues regardless of who's carrying the nomination.
A candidate who could have dragged this out for weeks chose not to. That is a small thing that is actually a large thing. Losing gracefully is a skill, and it is in short supply everywhere in American politics right now.
David Crowley was always my second choice, and I had every intention of voting for him if it came to that. Now it has come to that, and I am not sulking about it. He is Milwaukee's county executive, he has Tony Evers' endorsement, and he is the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin. That is simply where things stand as of this week.
Now is not the time to apply and reapply purity tests to the Democrats in 2026. I want to be clear that I am not pleased with a lot of what the party does, at the state level and nationally. That criticism is fair and it is not going anywhere. But a mature citizen understands the actual shape of the argument in front of them right now.
We have a de facto two party system in this country. Whatever you think of that fact, arguing about whether it should be true does not change that it currently is. Which means the choice on the ballot this fall is not between the candidate who perfectly matches your policy checklist and someone else who also mostly matches it. It is between a disappointing friend and a mortal enemy.
"Would you rather get most of what you want, or lose everything you have?"
Tom Tiffany has Donald Trump's endorsement. He voted against certifying the 2020 election results in two states as a member of Congress. He is running to define himself as a steady Wisconsin everyman, which is a smart strategy and also does not change the voting record underneath it. That is who is standing on the other side of this choice.
Crowley is not going to satisfy everyone who wanted Hong. He was not built to. But the premise that a disappointing ally and an active threat deserve the same skepticism is not principled, it is just tired. The choice is clear.
The primary is over. The work now is showing up for the guy who won, not relitigating why he wasn't your first pick.
