Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley secured the Democratic nomination for governor in the early hours of Wednesday morning as state Rep. Francesca Hong conceded the race, ending the uncertainty of a primary characterized by unprecedented chaos over the last two months. 

An error in uploading absentee ballot data in Milwaukee caused a delay in reporting that pushed the final results off and both Hong and Crowley ended their election watch parties after midnight with no winner declared. The Associated Press called the race at 2:34 a.m. Wednesday after Hong conceded, with 98% of the ballots counted as Crowley maintained a lead of just over 3,200 votes.

Crowley will face U.S. Rep Tom Tiffany, the GOP nominee for governor, who easily defeated his Republican challenger, and his running mate David Varnam. Varnam defeated Will Martin, who had the endorsement of the state GOP and had been campaigning with Tiffany.

The Democratic primary, which started with seven candidates, all of whose names appeared on the ballot even after three dropped out, dwindled to four candidates competing for the nomination. When the race concluded, AP reported that Crowley had 39.8% of the vote and Hong had 39.4%. State Sen. Kelda Roys and former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan trailed the two leaders with 7.5% and 4.7% of the vote respectively.

In a statement, Crowley campaign manager Garren Randolph thanked voters and volunteers as well as the three other Democrats who had remained in the primary contest.

“They challenged all of us to think bigger about what our state can become,” Randolph said. “From day one, this campaign has been about what comes next for Wisconsin: making life more affordable, strengthening our schools, creating good-paying jobs, and making sure opportunity reaches every corner of our state. Now, David is focused on bringing people together, earning the support of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone who believes Wisconsin is at its best when we work together and deliver results.”

Crowley launched his campaign in September 2025, dropped out in July and endorsed Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, then reentered the race when Rodriguez dropped out. Gov. Tony Evers, who had declined to express a preference in the race before the final days, encouraged Crowley to rejoin the field and campaigned for him up until Election Day.

Worried that Hong, a democratic socialist, state lawmaker and chef, could not win the general election, undecided Democratic primary voters flocked to Crowley’s resurrected campaign. Hong ran a campaign based on a cadre of grassroots volunteers and a strong  social media strategy. Polls showed her dominating the field with a double-digit lead toward the end of the campaign, a result that was not matched by vote tallies on Election Night.

Victory parties with the outcome hanging

The crowd gathered at Atwood Music Hall in Madison for Hong’s victory party started the night in a hopeful mood, singing to Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan, Stateside by PinkPantheress and Wannabe by the Spice Girls. Supporters made signs at a table and took photos together. Loud boos rang out when President Donald Trump and Tiffany, the Republican candidate, appeared on the large screens showing CNN’s election night coverage.

In the two weeks leading up to the election, Crowley and Evers raced across the state to reintroduce Crowley to voters with Evers telling people he thought Hong would not be able to beat Tiffany. 

April Brown, a Madison resident, said the issues she is most concerned about this election year are affordability, data centers and queer and trans issues. She and her wife, who came out as trans three years ago, moved to Dane County about a year ago from Georgia. 

“The South was increasingly becoming hostile towards people like us, like her,” Brown said. “When I found out about Fran being, not only my district representative in the state Assembly, but also she was running for governor and found how passionate she was about LGBTQ rights, I knew I had to throw my support behind her.” 

Brown said she would get behind Crowley if he won, but she felt hope voting for Hong. 

“I think she really resonates with people because she gets people and she wants to help people,” Brown said. 

Crowley’s supporters gathered at the Regency Ballroom in the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Milwaukee Tuesday night.

Darryl Morin, national president and board chairman of Forward Latino, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, and other local elected officials joined the crowd.

Throughout the evening, Crowley maintained a slight lead over Hong as vote totals were reported across the state. Updates on the large TV screens in the ballroom were greeted with cheering from the crowd. 

Talk of a possible recount began as Crowley maintained his razor-thin advantage. Hong’s after-hours concession forestalled the possibility of a recount. 

Calls for unity

Just before 11:30 p.m., Hong addressed her supporters, thanking them and telling them that they have “built something that will change politics forever.”

“In 11 weeks, no matter who’s on this ballot, we are going to fight to win for one another,” Hong said. “We will win together, united. Because everyone who’s running in this race, they know that we can make better possible and we must make better possible.”

After Hong left the stage her campaign staff wished everyone a good night and the lights in Atwood Music Hall were turned up. 

Hannah Ecay, a 25-year-old who wore a Madison Area DSA shirt, said she doesn’t have kids, but wants to one day and that’s part of why she supports Hong and her affordability agenda. 

“I don’t have kids yet, but when I do childcare and public education are very important to me, and I’d like to see those things be set up now, before I have children,” Ecay said. 

Ecay said she would vote for Crowley in the general election if he wins.

“Anyone’s better than Tom Tiffany, but I won’t be as excited about it as I would be for Francesca,” she said. 

As votes were being tallied in Milwaukee, election workers announced that a mistake had been made where some of the flash drives used to record the election results were downloaded with audit data instead of information from 15,000 absentee ballots. The mistake was expected to take over an hour to fix. Congresswoman Gwen Moore addressed Crowley’s supporters, saying that she believes that “the red bird will fly,” referring to a story from Crowley’s wife of having seen a red cardinal — a significant religious symbol to her — which she interpreted as a sign that Crowley should re-enter the race. 

Jarrett English, a community organizer in Milwaukee, said that he respects both Hong and Crowley. “I’ve known David since he was an organizer, and so I know that he works hard,” English told the Examiner. “He was always going to do well in Milwaukee because he’s been an incredible county executive, arguably the most successful county executive in a generation, at least in terms of the amount of things that have gotten accomplished with housing, with mental health, with not necessarily shared revenue but getting more revenue for the metro area. All those things show that he is more than ready to be at a higher level.” 

English said he believes either Hong or Crowley would make fantastic governors. “I personally will be happy with whoever wins,” said English, saying that while he doesn’t always agree with Crowley, he’s “a bridgebuilder” and Hong “is the same.”

Donna Davis, managing partner for Vox Pop Solutions and a Crowley supporter who traveled from Florida, said that “Crowley’s candidacy, who Crowley is and what he believes in, is an idea and a moment whose time has come.” Observing Crowley’s  unexpected surge which kept him in the lead most of the night, Davis said, “I think people want something different. I think they’re unsure about the unknown. I mean this is the Midwest, and people like what they know. And he fits Wisconsin.” 

Davis said that Crowley’s performance Tuesday night is a sign that “Milwaukee is ready to move into the 21st century, Wisconsin is ready for the 21st century.” If she were asked  just three years ago whether his success would have been possible, “I would’ve told you ‘absolutely not.’ I wasn’t even really sure that this was the moment because we’re in the middle of a very divisive era in American history. But this is a democracy, and the voters have the final say.”

Moving into the general election

Crowley will be joined on the ticket by Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, who is running in November for lieutenant governor and faced no primary opponent. She previously served as state treasurer from January 2019 to January 2023. Evers appointed her to her current position. 

Democrats have their work cut out for them as they seek to beat Tiffany, a three-term congressman who currently represents the state’s largest congressional district in the northern half of the state. Wisconsin’s statewide races are typically decided by close margins, including in 2018 when Evers defeated Gov. Scott Walker by about 30,000 votes. 

Ahead of Election Day, Democratic candidates had been discussing uniting following the primary to defeat Tiffany.

Crowley was scheduled to accept the nomination at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Milwaukee. Godlewski, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and Crowley are scheduled to meet for a unity breakfast later Wednesday morning in the Madison area, seeking to move past the divisiveness of the primary with less than three months until the general election.

Small wonder nearly half of voters haven’t decided who to back in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin’s next governor. If you sent in your ballot early, you might have voted for the candidate who won the straw poll at the Democratic party convention only to flail her way through a dramatic public scandal, run out of money and quit. The latest Marquette Law School poll, released this week, still had her name as a candidate, but didn’t include the candidate who dropped out two weeks ago before getting back in the race with Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement. 

Meanwhile, the frontrunner in poll after poll, as Baylor Spears reports, is Francesca Hong. 

Some Democrats are so sure Hong, as a democratic socialist, will lose in a general-election matchup with Republican Tom Tiffany they’re desperately hopping from horse to horse, searching for an alternative. One of those horses, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, stumbled badly and collapsed. Now we’ve got Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, whose late endorsement by Evers generated a backlash against the “Democratic establishment.”

Whoever’s running the “establishment’ might be overbearing, but they sure don’t seem to be adept at picking winners. Days after his reentry, Crowley is struggling with negative stories about crude posts to an old Twitter account.

The problem Democrats in Wisconsin face is less about party bosses behind the scenes calling the shots than it is lack of any organization. A little leadership from Evers earlier in the process might have staved off disaster.

At a minimum, he could have made up his mind to back Crowley before Crowley dropped out. He could have had painful but necessary conversations with Joel Brennan, Sara Rodriguez and Missy Hughes, the other members of his administration who campaigned at least partly on their association with him. “Look, I see a bright future for you in politics, but I’ve decided to go with Crowley in this race,” he might have said. Then Crowley (or whoever Evers decided to support) could have built some strength over the course of the campaign.

Instead, we have the current mess.

Wisconsin’s messy primary is also a symptom of Democrats’ general disarray. Unable to come up with a plan to effectively counter the frightening power of a violent, kleptocratic regime in Washington, they are waffling between trying not to alienate swing voters by sounding too radical versus tapping into the energy and outrage of the anti-Trump electorate.

Looking over their shoulders at the Republicans, several Democratic campaigns point to the millions of dollars in TV ads the Republican Governors Association bought featuring light criticism of Hong. The ads appear to be a transparent effort to boost Hong in the primary, since Republicans think they can beat her in the general election. So what? Hong appears to be winning the primary anyway, with or without the RGA boost, through her straight talk, superb social media strategy, grassroots ground game and the enthusiasm she’s generating, especially from young voters who don’t trust normal politicians and institutional Democratic party politics. 

That doesn’t mean she’s the best candidate to beat Tiffany. But instead of buying into the Republican political analysis, or as one Democrat did, running an ominous attack ad trumpeting that Hong is a “proud socialist!” (the horror!), Democrats should be trying to steal a page from Hong. That ugly ad, featuring photos of the three candidates of color, labeling them all unelectable, and then toggling to Joel Brennan, the only white guy in the race, is a good example of what Democratic primary voters want to reject.

It’s no surprise Hong is catching fire. People like candidates who say what they mean and aren’t afraid to be themselves, as opposed to candidates who seem to be trying to tell them what they want to hear or pretending to be just like them. They want to see courage and conviction in the face of bullying and corruption. They do not particularly like seeing Democrats tearing each other apart — especially not by drawing on the kinds of smug, bigoted attacks made by the other side. 

Imagine a Democratic party that includes democratic socialists and more middle-of-the-road candidates, promoting an uplifting message about protecting a decent society, functional government and human rights. 

That’s the vision people are hungry for. Wisconsin Democrats should not be afraid to serve it up.