Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary win by David Crowley was a big surprise.
The Milwaukee County Executive narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong. Crowley will face Republican Tom Tiffany Nov. 3.
Hong had a groundswell of grassroots support, while Crowley dropped out of the race in July. At that time, Crowley was behind in the polls.
He jumped back in a week later, after Sara Rodriguez dropped out due financial mismanagement by a campaign staffer.
UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden spoke with WUWM’s Ann-Elise Henzl about Crowley’s turnaround.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ann-Elise Henzl: Based on polling, many people expected that Francesca Hong was going to run away with the Democratic gubernatorial bid. But it turned out quite different from that. I'm wondering what you think about the shift to David Crowley and what was responsible for that shift.
Barry Burden: Well, Hong did perform about as well as the polls indicated. She got around 40% of the vote. But what was surprising was the movement of Democrats behind Crowley in these final days. It happened in record speed.
Once Tony Evers endorsed Crowley, Crowley came back into the race. He also got endorsements from some other prominent people, raised a lot of money and got on the air advertising, so that voters knew who he was and that he was an active candidate again. It really looks like there was interest among Democrats in finding an alternative to Hong, who didn't have the risks that she might in a general election against Tom Tiffany.
There's an opportunity this year for Democrats to potentially win a trifecta, to win both chambers of the state Legislature, as well as the governor's office. And Hong had some upsides, but also some risk. Crowley was a safer bet, somebody with the executive experience, from a large county, who had also been in the state Legislature and endorsed by the sitting governor, who's one of the more popular figures in the state. And that was enough, just in time, to get Democrats to a place where they could prevent Hong from being the nominee.
Hong ran a campaign that featured a groundswell of support from everyday people, without the benefit of the big spending on TV ads and radio ads that is so common in elections. I'm wondering what you think about what happens to that support that Hong was able to achieve, and whether Crowley can tap into that in any way?
Yeah, the Hong campaign was remarkable. She was not considered a serious candidate when she entered the race, maybe a novelty candidate. But she slowly built a very serious organization of volunteers, a network of people around the state, using social media, not using traditional TV advertising. She didn't run a single TV ad.
And she wants that organization and that movement to continue. She's endorsed Crowley as the nominee, and so she's pledged to help him.
I assume the Democratic Party is going to learn from her success. The Republicans may learn from her success as well. This is a non-partisan opportunity to learn about how to run an effective campaign in a different way that brings in a different set of voters, especially young voters. People who are disaffected, people who don't vote that regularly, who are not that engaged in regular party politics, got drawn in by her style and her messaging. I think both parties have something to learn there.
I've even seen, in Tom Tiffany's latest ad, a little bit of influence of the Hong style of direct talk — a kind of punchiness about issues and being very clear where they stand in a way to engage voters quickly. So I think both parties are going to pick it up. And if the Democrats can unite in a way that brings the Hong people on board, who maybe were skeptical about a traditional candidate, they will be a potent force in general election.
What's intriguing to me is that you can't manufacture that type of magic that Hong was able to generate for her campaign and among her supporters. What do you think David Crowley has in his power to do? I don't mean to disparage him in any way, but she really is a one-of-a-kind candidate.
She is a one-of-a-kind candidate. And people say similar things about people like Bernie Sanders and AOC, who are just very effective communicators and have an authenticity about them that people are attracted to. And I think Crowley is not a very well-known politician, especially outside the Milwaukee media market. So he's got an opportunity now, very quickly, to tell his biographical story about growing up in poverty with a difficult life in Milwaukee and climbing his way into politics and earning a college degree and all the other things — building a family and so on.
As he has said, he doesn't think of himself as part of the establishment. And he probably wouldn't be cast that way if Hong was not in the race with him, compared to some of the other Democrats in the race. So, I think there's a chance there. And Crowley seems like someone who is comfortable being himself on the campaign trail. There's not an artifice about him that will turn people off, I think. It may not be possible to recreate the Hong campaign exactly, but I think Crowley has an opportunity to connect with voters in a way by telling his story.
[Crowley] was often painted in the media as the moderate person or the more mainstream person. Is that label fair? How would you describe him?
Well, he's a Democrat, and most of the Democrats in this race agreed on the vast majority of issues. They had some differences on data centers, maybe some differences on how legal they would make marijuana in the state or what they want tax rates to be. But broadly, it's a liberal party, left-of-center. And he's in that camp.
But he's also got a job that requires him to run government on a day-to-day basis in Milwaukee County. He has a managerial style, of having to meet budgets and deadlines and hire personnel. It's an executive position. So, that requires some practicality.
And he has cut deals with Republicans at times, in the state Legislature, on taxes, on the Brewer's stadium, on other things, which Hong has not had to do or not had the opportunity to do. So, it makes him look more moderate, because he is sort of operating in the day-to-day world of governance. I think it's good preparation for being a governor. That might be part of his appeal to Gov. Evers in particular.
