Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley secured an upset victory in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, defeating Francesca Hong by less than a percentage point. According to NBC News, pre-election surveys had consistently favored Hong by nearly 20 points, highlighting a severe polling miss in the purple swing state.
Pre-election polling in Wisconsin failed to predict David Crowley’s win in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. According to NBC News, Crowley had dropped out of the race on July 8 before an unlikely series of events brought him back to become his party’s nominee just five weeks later.
Polling Discrepancies in Wisconsin’s Primary
The Milwaukee County Executive won the primary against Francesca Hong by a margin of less than a percentage point, according to NBC News reporting. Before the vote, Hong had consistently led pre-election surveys by nearly 20 points.
While Hong exceeded expectations for a left-wing candidate in a purple swing state, her performance fell dramatically short of the pre-election polling numbers. NBC News notes that while it might be tempting to assume polls simply overestimated progressive and democratic socialist candidates, the reality involves several combined factors.
Factors Behind the Polling Miss
Primary elections often feature large numbers of undecided voters who pay less attention to the races, leaving them easily persuaded by election day. Furthermore, predicting voter behavior based on variables like race and education, as well as who will show up to vote on election day
remains difficult, according to NBC News analysis.
When individual forecasting challenges combine, they can generate massive forecasting errors. According to NBC News, the convergence of high numbers of undecided voters and shifting turnout variables created a seismic miss resulting in a 20-plus point margin shift.
Broader Political Developments
Across other political races, longtime Rep. John Larson’s defeat in Connecticut made him the 10th House incumbent to lose a primary, driven by redistricting and reckonings among both Republicans and Democrats, according to subscriber reporting from NBC News. Additionally, the Trump administration offered to assist states in securing election systems ahead of the midterms following earlier changes to the main federal office responsible for election security.
In Washington, D.C., taxpayers spent at least $600 million a year after President Donald Trump deployed National Guard members to address a crime emergency, a move local residents criticized as an unnecessary occupation.
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