Progressives experienced a split in two closely watched Democratic primaries Tuesday, as voters in Minnesota and Wisconsin produced sharply different results in contests that represented competing visions for the party’s future.
In Minnesota, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan decisively won the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, defeating U.S. Rep. Angie Craig by roughly 20 percentage points. Craig previously faced criticism for her voting record supporting immigration enforcement in a state that saw a deadly crackdown by federal agents earlier this year.
In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, winning about 39.8% of the vote to Hong’s 39.4%. The difference came down to fewer than 4,000 votes .
The contrasting results came one week after Michigan Democrats nominated progressive Abdul El-Sayed for Senate, while Missouri voters rejected a comeback attempt by former Rep. Cori Bush, a progressive who lost her Democratic primary rematch with Rep. Wesley Bell. Bell unseated Bush in 2024 with the support of millions of dollars from the pro-Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee .
The races paint a fragmented picture of Democratic voters and invite larger questions about whether the party’s progressive wing can turn a series of high-profile primary campaigns into a broader party realignment.
Minnesota’s progressive surge
In Minnesota, Flanagan and Craig spent months on the campaign trail discussing the kind of Democrat that should replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith.
Flanagan, the progressive candidate, emerged Tuesday with a commanding victory over Craig, a moderate Democrat who emphasized her record in Congress and her experience winning in a competitive district. Flanagan will face Republican nominee Michele Tafoya in November.
Flanagan framed the campaign as a contest between grassroots organizing and big-money politics, or, as she told supporters Tuesday night, “ the many versus the money .” Her victory came despite substantially larger spending by Craig and the outside groups who backed her.
Craig voted for the Laken Riley Act in January 2025. She was one of 46 House Democrats to support the Republican-led bill, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain immigrants in the country illegally who are arrested for certain crimes. After the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota intensified this January, leading to the fatal shootings of Renée Good a n d Alex Pretti by federal agents, that vote became a major vulnerability for Craig in the Senate primary.
Flanagan will face Republican nominee Michele Tafoya in November.
While Craig later said she regretted the vote, her voting record gave Flanagan a potent argument against a candidate who spent months presenting herself as a Democrat willing to confront the Trump administration. Craig visited an immigrant detention center with other Minnesota Democrats after federal agents blocked members of Congress from entering, and she later introduced legislation aimed at restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding.
Flanagan entered the primary with the backing of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and prominent progressive figures, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She campaigned against corporate influence in politics and criticized Craig’s immigration record. Craig, meanwhile, argued that her approach was better suited to a politically diverse state.
Craig ch o se not to seek the DFL endorsement. “I’m a proud DFLer,” Craig said when announcing the decision, but contended that the endorsement process did not reflect the party’s “full scope” of the purple state’s political spectrum.
The larger question looming over the election Tuesday was whether Craig’s fundraising edge and appeal to more moderate voters could overcome Flanagan’s advantage among the Democratic Party ’s activist and progressive base.
Before the election, political scientist Larry Jacobs described the race as hinging on turnout, pointing to Flanagan’s strategy of “ supercharging the progressive base of the DFL .”
Tuesday’s result in Minnesota suggests the strategy worked. The result gives the progressive wing of the Democratic Party one of its clearest statewide primary victories of the election cycle.
Wisconsin asks a different question
Wisconsin offered a similar ideological confrontation but in a different political environment.
Hong, the state representative, entered the gubernatorial primary as the most prominent progressive candidate in a crowded Democratic field. Meanwhile, Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, entered the final stretch with the endorsement of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers and an argument centered heavily on electability. He emerged the winner.
Crowley briefly suspended his campaign in July before re-entering the race with Evers’ backing. In the closing weeks, he benefited from a surge in fundraising and support from the Democratic establishment.
“Over the past few months, you’ve heard a lot of people try to define this election as a battle between the left and the center,” Crowley told supporters after winning. “Between progressives and the establishment. Between insiders and outsiders. That narrative misses the entire point of what we’re doing. Because when I traveled across Wisconsin, I didn’t meet people who introduced themselves that way.”
“Wisconsin, we have built something that will change politics forever.”
Hong, speaking to her supporters before the race was called, struck a similarly forward-looking tone.
“Wisconsin, we have built something that will change politics forever,” she said . “The work we have done will be remembered forever.”
Hong’s campaign became a national test of whether an explicitly democratic socialist candidate could win a statewide Democratic nomination in a closely divided Midwestern state. Her platform emphasized issues such as universal childcare, free school meals, labor rights and a moratorium on new data center construction.
Crowley’s campaign represented a more traditional Democratic argument: that the party needs a candidate who can defeat Republican nominee Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.
Domino Williams, outreach chair of the Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America, said progressive organizers viewed Hong’s campaign as part of a broader movement that includes recent victories by progressive candidates in other states.
“We view this as our race too,” Williams told Prism before the election was decided.
Williams said one of his biggest priorities was Hong’s commitment to ending Act 10 , the Wisconsin law that sharply restricted collective bargaining rights for public employees. He also pointed to childcare costs and opposition to data centers as issues motivating progressive voters.
“I am incredibly sad and frustrated by what occurred yesterday, but I don’t take this as a denial from the people that socialism can work in our state,” Williams said following the election results. “Forces coalesced against us effectively and decided to go low to circumvent the momentum of our movement. We won’t stop trying and we are stronger from this than we were before.”
For Williams, the broader frustration was that Democrats too often focus on defeating Republicans rather than advancing a vision that serves voters.
Hong came within a fraction of a percentage point of winning.
“Even a lot of people who refer to themselves as progressives are just acting to stop the Republicans,” he said, “without actually moving us towards the left.”
Hong came within a fraction of a percentage point of winning, despite badly trailing Crowley in fundraising and his endorsement from Evers. Some pre-election polls had her leading by 20 or 30 points.
That Hong came so close to winning illustrated to some progressives how much support their coalition has been able to build.
Williams described the campaigns of El-Sayed in Michigan, Hong in Wisconsin and other recent progressive candidates as parts of the same movement: one increasingly focused on turning grassroots organizing into electoral victories.
Whether Tuesday’s results ultimately mark the beginning of a broader shift or simply another set of contests in a divided Democratic Party largely depends on what happens in the November general elections and whether the coalitions responsible for primary victories can hold the line.
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Progressives Win Big in Minnesota, Lose a Squeaker Wisconsin
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