Let’s do some gubernatorial math with fewer than two weeks to go before the August 11 primary. It’s not over yet, even though Rep. Francesca Hong has an apparently unstoppable lead in the polls.
The Democratic Socialist (she’s not a communist) from Madison had 38% of the votes in the Marquette Law School poll conducted last week. That puts her way ahead of the three remaining Democratic candidates running for the nomination in the general election Nov. 3.
But numbers can be funny things. Hong is by far the best defined of the remaining Democrats. Her alignment with the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) gives her a high profile that almost all informed voters in Wisconsin know about. She is a well-known outlier. Those polled know who they opted for and, more importantly, exactly who they opted against.
Long and short, that means that most of the 62% of the survey respondents who were undecided or opted for the other three candidates knowingly had issues with her extreme views. Will she in the next week pick up a big share of those who opted for less strident Democrats? My guess is that it is doubtful that she will find any big additions to her column.
Further, some small chunk of the Hong support in the poll probably came from Republicans who were playing games. Some GOPers want Hong to be the nominee; they think her once-held positions like defunding the police and getting rid of choice schools will make her an easier mark for Tom Tiffany, who will be the Republican nominee.
If those assessments hold up, and even though these are just polling numbers, not actual ballots, it is conceivable than one of the other three Democratic candidates could gain a plurality that exceeds hers.
Note, though, that she is already moderating some positions.
Note also that Lt. Gov. Sarah Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes both looked like they might be able to gain a plurality bigger than Hong’s, but they have both dropped out of the race.
And two other candidates, Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan, have barely moved the needle in repeated polls. That leaves Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley (left) with the only real shot at overtaking Hong for the Democratic silver ring.
He had only 7% support in last week’s poll, but he has won elections before, twice as the executive of Milwaukee County and twice as a legislator.
Making Crowley’s long shot more plausible, there is a wide open opportunity for him to become Trump’s most fierce opponent over the next three months, and, therefore, Tiffany’s, too. Tiffany has been all in for Trump.
For about half of Americans, the president is a loser. His “strongly disapproval” ratings have reached about half of U.S. survey respondents.
And Trump’s recent approval overall poll numbers are in the toilet. His recent approval in the Quinnipiac poll was 32%, in the AP/NORC poll 33% and in CNN poll 34%.
Believe it or not, the PEW Research Center put his approval at 24% on July 23.
Could he go even lower and drag Tiffany, a Trump loyalist, down with him? It’s possible if the president’s ill-begotten war in Iran continues, with no end in sight. He refused to go to Congress for its consent to the war, so has no one to blame him but himself and his historically ignorant cabinet.
Back to Hong: 62% were not for her in the Marquette poll. The undecided were 45% of that.
In a simple calculation, Crowley would need to pick up 44 points of the non-Hong 62% to get to a clear majority of 51% of Democrats to win the nomination.
To pull that off, almost all of the Democratic candidates, past and present, and their supporters, would have to coalesce behind Crowley. It’s a very long shot.
I noticed that when Tiffany campaigned in Washington County, his signs didn’t carry the word “Republican” and he was mostly mum on Trump. He is trying to run as a good old boy from Wisconsin who grew up on a dairy farm, as far from Trump as he can.
But, the Democrats won’t let anyone forget that Tiffany always voted down the line with The Donald.
On another note, is it conceivable that some Republicans will defect to the Democratic side of the aisle against Donald Trump in the general election Nov. 3, and therefore against Tom Tiffany? You would think that some would be that disgusted with his mindless conduct in the Oval Office.
You might want to argue that the governorship of Wisconsin has a little to do with how the national politics are going to play out over the next two years. But you would be wrong. Governors will have a lot to say, for example, about the conduct of elections which are state and local matters, largely not subject to national management from the White House.
Conventional wisdom and an abiding belief in the validity of the polls would suggest that it will be a Tiffany-Hong contest for governor in November. But everything in politics is upside down this year, and the polls have been wrong before. There is an outside chance it will be a Tiffany – Crowley election in November.
We live in crazy times.
