Clockwise from top left: Evers, Crowley, Hong, Rodriguez, Brennan, Hughes, Roys and Barnes.
Clockwise from top left: Gov. Tony Evers, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, former DOA Secretary Joel Brennan, former WEDC CEO Missy Hughes, state Sen. Kelda Roys and former Lt. Gov. Mandala Barnes.
It was one painful-to-watch Democratic primary for governor, but Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated Rep. Francesca Hong. It’s Crowley versus Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany for the governor’s job on Nov. 3.
Where did the primary leave eight major Democratic players?
Gov. Tony Evers: With a job approval rating of 51%, Evers’ endorsement of Crowley, and barnstorming the state with him in the days before the primary, is why Crowley is the Democratic nominee. Many Democrats who told Marquette University pollsters they were undecided in late July ended up taking Evers’ “vote Crowley” advice. It was a legacy win for the retiring governor.
David Crowley: The first political lightning struck Crowley on July 18, when he got Evers’ endorsement one month less than two weeks quitting the race after single-digit ratings in polls. Will political lightning hit him again on Nov. 3, when he could become the state’s first Black governor? Even if he doesn’t win, the 40-year-old “Comeback” Crowley has a future in Wisconsin politics.
Francesca Hong: The campaign of the progressive Madison assemblywoman and Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong quietly wired the state, connecting angry and frustrated young voters who want the government to play a greater role in their lives. The Dairyland Sentinel summarized how that worked, until the focus shifted to her past social media posts. Still, Hong got more than 310,000 votes — 85,000 more than Evers did when he won the 2018 primary. It makes her and her wired constituency big players in the future.
Mandela Barnes: Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes ended his campaign for governor on July 30. Although it could be the third strike in his political career, he is only 39.
After winning an Assembly seat from Milwaukee in 2012, he lost a 2016 primary challenge to then-state Sen. Lena Taylor. Barnes easily won the August 2018 primary for lieutenant governor and then became Evers’ first-term governing partner and the first African American to hold that office. In 2022, he narrowly lost a U.S. Senate campaign to Republican Ron Johnson.
Barnes’ surprising exit from the governor’s race, which came after a Marquette University Law School poll showed him trailing Hong, may have raised more questions than it answered.
Sara Rodriguez: Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor had served two years in the Assembly when she won a primary and became Evers’ running mate in 2022. But Rodriguez wonders what might have been, if her campaign manager had not double-counted and otherwise mismanaged donations.
Rodriguez, who dropped out of the campaign on July 16, must rebuild any future political career, since questions still remain about her failure to pick a competent campaign manager. There will undoubtedly be concerns about her ability to choose competent staff in future leadership positions.
Sen. Kelda Roys: Like Barnes, the Madison Democrat also lost her third bid for higher office. After serving four years in the Assembly, she lost a primary for the Madison-area seat in the U.S. House in 2012 and lost in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor, getting 13% of the vote.
But there may be silver lining in loss for Roys, whose four-year Senate term isn’t up until 2028. If Democrats win control of the state Senate, Roys is in line to be co-chair of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, which Republicans have controlled since 2012.
Missy Hughes: The former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation was a moderate in the early seven-candidate stage of the campaign for the Democratic nomination but also the first to drop out of the race.
The business contacts Hughes had made running the state’s job agency did not translate into any political base. Weren’t many of those executives she posed for grip-and-grin photos with Republicans? The former Organic Valley executive will gladly return to the private sector.
Joel Brennan: Evers’ first secretary of the state Department of Administration and a former top advisor to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Brennan thought his administrative pedigree, and metro-Milwaukee business connections, would impress Democratic voters.
But Brennan was one of three Milwaukee County Democrats running for governor, and the only one who had not been elected to anything. His campaign pitch of overseeing government for the first Evers Administration, and being able to broker deals with Republicans, didn’t resonate.
[Editor's note: This article was corrected to note that David Crowley got back into the race less than two weeks after he dropped out, not a month later.]
Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at [email protected]
