{"id":35685,"date":"2026-08-10T03:11:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=35685"},"modified":"2026-08-10T03:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:11:51","slug":"bernies-revolution-gets-a-test-run-for-2028-in-michigan-and-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=35685","title":{"rendered":"Bernie&#039;s revolution gets a test run for 2028 in Michigan and Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/-26_41Fv2I6U4E9Q3XzDI35ACDI=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/10\/1783711347641.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>LA CROSSE, Wis<\/em>. \u2014 Progressive insurgents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2023\/08\/17\/expanding-equitable-access-to-health-care-madison\" target=\"_blank\">Francesca Hong<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/05\/democrats-senate-michigan-el-sayed-stevens\" target=\"_blank\">Abdul El-Sayed<\/a> want to shake up the next race for the White House \u2014 a notion that will likely petrify many top Democrats.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>They aren&#8217;t running for president \u2014 they&#8217;re vying for statewide office this year in presidential battlegrounds, and their campaigns are closely watched tests of the Bernie Sanders\u2013style populism they want their party to embrace in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/signup\/axios-2028\" target=\"_blank\">2028<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s a question that has haunted Democrats for a decade: Is America ready for a full-on left turn in politics, like what Sanders pitched when he ran for president in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2019\/06\/10\/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialist-president\" target=\"_blank\">2016<\/a>?<\/li>\n<li>The prospect worries many old-guard Democrats who fear Hong and El-Sayed can&#8217;t win a November general election.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Driving the news:<\/strong> Hong, a self-described democratic socialist running for Wisconsin governor, is leading the polls for Tuesday&#8217;s primary by double digits, as the party establishment tries to stop her. She told Axios during a get-out-the-vote tour that a win in November could boost progressive presidential hopefuls in the future.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;A victory for our campaign is a victory for working-class people in Wisconsin and across the country \u2014\u00a0and it could signal to many candidates that we have common issues that we can be fighting for,&#8221; Hong said.<\/li>\n<li>El-Sayed, Michigan&#8217;s new Democratic nominee for Senate, went further in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/playbook\/2026\/08\/05\/a-delayed-revolution-01025105\" target=\"_blank\">Politico interview<\/a>, prodding prospective 2028 candidates to embrace Medicare for All and other pieces of his populist agenda.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;If not, I&#8217;m going to dog you up and down the state,&#8221; he warned with a brash smile.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in:<\/strong> Progressives have long argued that Democrats twice lost the White House to Donald Trump not because voters see them as too far left, as many moderates believe, but because they&#8217;re viewed as champions of a broken status quo.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;re beginning to get a glimpse of what testing that theory looks like \u2014 and how Republicans are adopting their own strategies in return.<\/li>\n<li>To put the challenge into context: No progressive as closely aligned with Sanders as El-Sayed has won a battleground Senate race \u2014 and the U.S. has never elected a socialist governor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>There was something of a split screen<\/strong> this week in the way many Democratic insiders were responding to El-Sayed \u2014 whom many party leaders are slowly growing more comfortable with \u2014 and Hong, whom even several leading progressives are keeping at arm&#8217;s length.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>El-Sayed, a former public health official<strong> <\/strong>who campaigned on abolishing ICE and expanding Medicare to all Americans, signaled a willingness to reassure general election voters about his views on immigration while also maintaining the pugilistic tone that helped him win a hard-fought primary.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;We can have a secure border, we can enforce immigration policy, but we can do it without shooting people in the face or the back of the head,&#8221; he said at a rally Friday.<\/li>\n<li>El-Sayed embraces the left but eschews the &#8220;democratic socialist&#8221; label, even though several leading progressives who support him describe themselves that way.<\/li>\n<li>Many party bigwigs \u2014 mindful of Democrats&#8217; uphill fight to win control of the Senate \u2014 endorsed El-Sayed after his primary win in a show of unity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Hong&#8217;s rollout<\/strong> onto the national political scene has been shakier.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hong is a restaurant owner-turned-state representative in Wisconsin whose shoestring campaign unexpectedly caught fire as she championed affordability and backed a moratorium on building data centers at a time when her opponents&#8217; campaigns were plagued by scandals.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley <\/strong>is the chief Democratic candidate looking to stop her, backed backed by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D).<\/li>\n<li>As Hong has garnered national attention, she&#8217;s gone viral for being mealymouthed when <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Acyn\/status\/2084456363061924260\" target=\"_blank\">asked on CNN<\/a> about a past social media post calling to &#8220;cancel Thanksgiving.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Following her in Wisconsin, we saw signs she was adapting her message as voters asked her about her old posts at stop after stop.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;People care about the solutions, not just slogans and labels,&#8221; she told us. Hong told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/playbook\/2026\/08\/09\/what-we-saw-in-wisconsin-01030271\" target=\"_blank\">Politico<\/a> she had &#8220;some bad takes on Twitter,&#8221; but &#8220;I&#8217;ve evolved, I&#8217;ve learned.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>She and El-Sayed have faced criticism over former comments supporting &#8220;defunding&#8221; the police, which they both have walked back \u2014 taking a page from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani&#8217;s playbook.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Friction point: <\/strong>Some Democratic strategists who think Hong is too far left are quick to point out that although progressive leaders Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have endorsed El-Sayed, they haven&#8217;t backed Hong.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hong has brushed it off, telling Axios she hasn&#8217;t sought their endorsements. She said she has had a brief conversation with the Democratic Governors Association.<\/li>\n<li>Asked about Hong on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/OsseChi\/status\/2086464028864352440\" target=\"_blank\">ABC<\/a>, Ocasio-Cortez said Hong has &#8220;moved away&#8221; from past positions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Some D.C. Democrats are signaling they might be able to get on board. <\/strong>Senior DGA officials said Friday that they believe all of their party&#8217;s primary candidates can defeat Rep. Tom Tiffany, the expected GOP nominee. They point to polls showing a tight race in November.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The other side: <\/strong>Republicans are treating El-Sayed and Hong much the same, casting both as extreme and out of touch.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>During their respective primaries, GOP groups tried to prop up both candidates, suggesting Republicans preferred to run against them instead of more moderate Democrats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Reality check: <\/strong>Hong still needs to win her primary Tuesday. Crowley, who&#8217;s seen a bump in the polls, is explicitly arguing that Hong would be a liability for Democrats in the fall.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;People don&#8217;t like socialists,&#8221; he told Axios. &#8220;Socialists didn&#8217;t poll very good.\u2026 And so it&#8217;s leading me to believe that she can&#8217;t win.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The bottom line:<\/strong> Hong and El-Sayed&#8217;s success or failure could serve as a signal to Democratic primary voters as they weigh the electability of a progressive presidential candidate in 2028.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AOC, who&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/09\/aoc-2028-president-schumer-senate\" target=\"_blank\">considering a run<\/a> for Senate or president, is sure to be watching.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LA CROSSE, Wis. \u2014 Progressive insurgents Francesca Hong and Abdul El-Sayed want to shake up the next race for the White House \u2014 a notion that will likely petrify many top Democrats. Why it matters: They aren&#8217;t running for president \u2014 they&#8217;re vying for statewide office this year in presidential battlegrounds, and their campaigns are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/-26_41Fv2I6U4E9Q3XzDI35ACDI=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/10\/1783711347641.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}