Wisconsin, Minnesota primaries test Democratic shift left

Madison,UPDATED: Aug 11, 2026 05:40 IST

Progressive candidates in Wisconsin and Minnesota made their final appeals on Monday ahead of Tuesday's primaries, adding to pressure on Democratic leaders already unsettled by a shift to the left in key contests. The races come a week after Abdul El-Sayed narrowly beat Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan's bitter and expensive Democratic US Senate primary, a result that energised the left while raising concerns within the party about the November election.

In Wisconsin, the Democratic primary for governor has turned chaotic, with democratic socialist Francesca Hong facing Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who has the backing of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers. In Minnesota, Democratic voters are choosing between moderate US Rep. Angie Craig and progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in a US Senate primary shaped by anger over President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement surge in the state.

In Wisconsin, Evers endorsed Crowley on July 18, the same day Crowley re-entered the race after dropping out 10 days earlier. He returned after the candidate he had backed, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, ended her campaign amid a finance scandal. Evers and Crowley spent the final days before polling together across the state. Standing beside Evers in Madison on Monday, Crowley said, "I feel like we caught lightning in a bottle. Momentum is just growing and growing and growing."

Establishment Democrats were hoping to unite behind Crowley after a campaign in which two other candidates dropped out, including former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes on July 29. Barnes and Rodriguez are still on the ballot, and absentee votes already cast for them cannot be changed. Republicans, meanwhile, have been spending to influence the Democratic primary. The Republican Governors Association has spent nearly USD 3.6 million through its Right Direction Wisconsin PAC on advertisements contrasting Hong with Trump and highlighting her liberal policies. Crowley and other Democrats say the aim is to lift Hong because Republicans see her as the easier opponent against Republican US Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.

At a rally in Hong's hometown of Madison on Sunday night, Evers told supporters Crowley was the Democrats' best chance of defeating Tiffany. "We're going to win this thing," he said, adding that Tiffany would be "the worst governor in the history of Wisconsin." He also said, "If Tom Tiffany wins in November that will be like electing Donald Trump as governor of the state of Wisconsin." Crowley called for unity after the primary, saying, "Our ultimate goal is to make sure we don't have a MAGA extremist occupying the governor's office." Hong, speaking to supporters on Monday afternoon, said the coalition she had built was not only about the primary. "We have to come together to defeat Tom Tiffany," she said, adding that she would welcome Evers campaigning with her after the primary. "This is about uniting," she said.

Tiffany, one of the most conservative members of Congress, has Trump's endorsement. Trump called Hong a communist in remarks on Wednesday and referred to a 2020 social media post in which she called for Thanksgiving to be cancelled. Asked about that post this week, Hong reversed her stand and said Thanksgiving was her favourite holiday. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and 2024, and Republicans have controlled both chambers of the Legislature since 2011. For Democrats, keeping the governor's office is central to their effort to take full control of state government for the first time in 16 years. In the race to replace Tiffany in Congress, Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, is in a five-way Republican primary for Duffy's old district. Alfonso also has Trump's endorsement, and the president said on a telephone rally on Monday night that he was "a fantastic young guy who's going to be a star in Washington."

In neighbouring Minnesota, the Democratic Senate contest has unfolded after the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, incidents caught on camera that triggered a backlash to Trump's immigration policies. Craig and Flanagan spent the weekend travelling across the Twin Cities metro area. Speaking in a driveway in suburban Eagan on Sunday, Craig addressed the frustration of Democratic primary voters who feel Washington is not working for them. She said members of Congress should stop trading stocks and becoming lobbyists after leaving office, and that the US must curb the flood of corporate campaign money. "But the only way we pass any of the progressive policies that all of us here support is by winning elections and taking damn majorities," she said. Unlike in Wisconsin, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has stayed out of the primary, though his wife, Gwen Walz, endorsed Craig and campaigned with her on Sunday.

As voters prepare to decide both contests on Tuesday, Democrats are watching closely to see whether the energy behind progressive candidates in Wisconsin and Minnesota adds to the momentum created by last week's result in Michigan, or deepens worries within the party about the path to November.

With PTI Inputs

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