Pollsters Defend Methodology After Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race Upset

An establishment-backed Democrat and Milwaukee County Executive, David Crowley, will need to rally support from far-left voters shocked by a messy results count and a surprise upset over Assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a Democratic Socialist, in Tuesday night’s primary election.Ms. Hong’s past commentary about hating American holidays and the torment of being white adjacent had not marred her seeming double-digit lead in the polls for the gubernatorial nomination ahead of this week’s Wisconsin primary. A site that gives polling averages, FiftyPlusOne, had Ms. Hong up by as many as 20 points since mid-July in the seven-candidate race. Her chief competitor, Mr. Crowley, had even briefly stopped campaigning over the summer due to a lack of support. He got back into the race 10 days later after he was endorsed by Governor Tony Evers.On election night Mr. Crowley squeezed out a half-point victory, 39.8 to 39.3 percent over Ms. Hong and ahead of the also-rans. The assemblywoman’s lack of endorsements from bigwig Democratic Socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders and her flipflop on earlier statements were cited for her rapid descent. “Instead of making a good case for democratic socialist politics herself, Francesca Hong made egregious errors down the home stretch of her race,” a longtime Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, offered in a postmortem on X.Ms. Hong conceded the race Wednesday and said she will support Mr. Crowley’s campaign. “Congratulations to David Crowley and his team. I fully support him and look forward to working with him to defeat Congressman Tiffany in November,” Ms. Hong wrote in a Wednesday afternoon X post. Mr. Crowley said he was starting a unity tour across the state to shore up Democratic support. But not everyone is in a unifying mood. Left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker claimed the Democratic establishment has sought to undermine far-left candidates. He warned that the Democratic Socialist movement will go after establishment Democrats. “The knives will be out,” Mr. Piker said in an election results livestream.The frustration among Ms. Hong’s supporters was in part the result of returns being delayed for hours after flash drives that were supposed to contain votes from Milwaukee County, Mr. Crowley’s homebase, were reportedly missing voter tabulations. County election officials blamed “human error” for the problem as they reloaded and delivered the USBs.The delay rankled election watchers. NBC News ended on-air coverage without declaring a winner in the race. The network’s chief data analyst, Steve Kornacki, was visibly frustrated by the issue, bending over with his hands on his knees as he was told of the problem. “Really? Really? So we’re back to square one on this?” Mr. Kornacki asked.A conservative lawyer who has filed election-related cases in Wisconsin, Dan Eastman, said the vote count highlights the need to end the central count in Milwaukee. “Return tabulation to the wards like the rest of the state does,” Mr. Eastman wrote in an X post. “Central count has been the problem since inception. Ban it!”Milwaukee officials said they would review what went wrong in an effort to avoid a similar incident in future elections.Irritation with the delayed though relatively rapid count — the race was called in one night in contrast to increasingly drawn-out decisions resulting from the rising popularity of mail-in ballots — was also compounded by flashbacks to a week earlier. Ms. Hong’s defeat resembled the nailbiter in Michigan, where the Senate candidate and Democratic Socialist favorite, Ahmad El-Sayed, won by a one-point margin after he was predicted to be crowned an early victor.Pollsters say the mismatch in expectations to results is more about methodology than a nefarious undermining of the electoral system. Polling commentator Nate Silver said polls may have been badly off in Wisconsin because primaries, in particular, are hard to model. “General elections are relatively easy given very high partisanship and usually predictable demographic relationships,” Mr. Silver wrote in an X post.“Attention pollsters: Autopsy needed,” oddsmaker Larry Sabato wrote on X after Ms. Hong greatly underperformed her polling numbers.With Mr. Crowley’s win, Mr. Sabato, who runs the longtime forecasting site, “Crystal Ball,” has moved the Wisconsin governor’s race from a “tossup” to “leans Democratic,” a sign that the county executive may be more palatable to general election voters.Congressman Tom Tiffany, who won the Republican nomination to challenge Mr. Crowley, said it didn’t matter who won the race. “There wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference” between the two candidates, he said Wednesday in a speech at Green Bay. He knocked Mr. Crowley’s record of raising taxes and running deficits in Milwaukee.“Should we be giving him a promotion to the most important seat in Wisconsin, the governorship of Wisconsin? I think that that’s disqualifying,” Mr. Tiffany said, according to the Milwaukee Journal.Election Night WrapWhile the Wisconsin upset served for mass speculation about both the Democratic Socialists’ ability to appeal outside deep blue pockets of the country, other races have finalized the brackets for November’s general election. In Minnesota, Senator Amy Klobuchar cruised to an easy victory in the Democratic nomination to succeed Governor Tim Walz, who decided not to seek a third term in the wake of a government services fraud scandal that unfolded under his watch. On the Republican side, the speaker of the Minnesota House, Lisa Demuth defeated two other candidates, including the pillow hawker and President Trump-backed candidate Mike Lindell.State senator Matt Little won the Democratic primary for Minnesota’s Second Congressional District to replace Congresswoman Angie Craig. Ms. Craig declined to seek reelection in order to run for the Senate seat, which she lost to the state’s lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan. Republicans hope to flip Ms. Craig’s House seat in November. State senator, Eric Pratt, ran unopposed in the Republican primary. In Connecticut, former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin defeated longtime Congressman John Larson in the Democratic primary for the state’s First Congressional District. Mr. Bronin ran to bring a new voice to Congress. He was endorsed by the state’s College Democrats and Greater Hartford Young Democrats. Pete Buttigieg also endorsed Mr. Bronin. A primary care and addiction medicine physician, Dr. Amy Chai, says she wants to work with members on both sides of the aisle. She ran unopposed on the Republican side for the solidly Democratic seat.One nomination still up in the air is in South Carolina, where Lindsey Graham’s sister and Governor McMaster-appointed Senator Darline Graham received the most votes, but not a majority, in a crowded Republican primary field. She will advance to a run-off election with the number two vote getter, Congressman Ralph Norman. President Trump endorsed Ms. Graham in the race. That deep red seat is safe for Republicans in November, according to Mr. Sabato.

Pollsters Defend Methodology After Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race Upset

Pollsters Defend Methodology After Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race Upset

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