Five of nine USB drives carrying Milwaukee absentee vote data contained audit logs instead of election results, delaying the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary for hours and leaving NBC's Steve Kornacki visibly stunned on a late-night livestream.
The error surfaced around 1 a.m. ET Wednesday, when local election officials at Milwaukee County Courthouse discovered that more than half the flash drives transported from the city's central count facility in the Bay View neighborhood held the wrong files. Officials had to drive back across town, retrieve the correct data, and restart the reporting process, all while roughly 28,000 absentee ballots sat uncounted and two candidates waited to learn who had won.
Milwaukee Election Commission executive director Paulina Gutierrez told reporters at a press conference just after midnight that the mix-up was a "human error." The Associated Press did not call the race until 2:34 a.m. Wednesday, when Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley was confirmed as the winner over State Representative Francesca Hong. Crowley finished with 65,131 votes, 43 percent, to Hong's 62,739, a margin of fewer than 4,000 votes.
NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki, 46, had already been streaming for roughly six hours on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram when NBC national politics reporter Ben Kamisar broke the news from the courthouse. The exchange, captured live on the "Kornacki Cam," showed two seasoned journalists struggling to process what they were hearing.
Kamisar told Kornacki he was still piecing the situation together in real time, reading closed captioning off his laptop as local officials briefed reporters on the ground.
"It appears that there were some irregularities in the reporting process, so I think they have to go back to the city location, do some work there, and then potentially kind of restart that process."
Kornacki's reaction was immediate and unfiltered.
"Are you serious? They have to... come-... Okay. Um, what are we thinking here?"
Kamisar clarified moments later that five of the USB sticks "were missing results from the election" and officials had to return to Bay View to retrieve the correct ones. Kornacki asked whether the delay meant hours of additional waiting. His only consolation: "Well, there's no traffic at this hour, I guess that's good."
At one point, with dead air stretching and no new information coming in, Kornacki pulled out his cellphone and asked the question every viewer was already thinking:
"How do I ask this artfully: Do we still have an audience?"
The livestream ended roughly ten minutes before the AP finally called the race. Kornacki never got to announce the winner on camera.
The flash drive debacle overshadowed what was already a significant political story. The prediction market Kalshi had pegged Hong, a self-described democratic socialist backed by Democratic Socialists of America chapters, Reps. Ilhan Omar and Ro Khanna, and former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, at a 95 percent chance of winning. She had polled ahead by double digits.
Crowley, by contrast, ran as the establishment-backed candidate. He secured endorsements from retiring Gov. Tony Evers, the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Laborers' District Council, the IBEW Wisconsin State Conference, and multiple Democratic mayors. His victory marked a rare win for the Democratic Party's moderate wing over its progressive flank in a cycle where far-left insurgents have challenged establishment candidates across the 2026 primary map.
Hong addressed supporters as the results remained in limbo, saying she was "ready to keep fighting." Crowley's campaign said it felt "optimistic" but acknowledged the race was not over until every vote was counted.
The outcome drew sharp reactions across the political spectrum. Far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who had appeared alongside Hong and Rep. Omar at an August campaign rally, warned that the Democratic establishment would now redouble its efforts against socialist insurgent candidates. Obama strategist David Axelrod had urged Wisconsin Democrats before the primary to reject Hong's candidacy outright.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican, went further than most, flatly declaring that "the Democrat establishment stole the election from Hong." That claim has not been substantiated by any official finding. Gutierrez maintained the error was corrected and the final results were accurate.
But the optics were damaging regardless of intent. Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest city and its most consequential Democratic vote center, fumbled basic data transfer in a high-profile primary decided by fewer than 4,000 votes. Conservative critics pointed to the incident as fresh evidence that digital voting infrastructure needs tighter safeguards, and some called for new election integrity legislation at the state level. The episode echoed concerns raised in other states where vote-count delays have triggered formal investigations.
Under Wisconsin law, a recount can be requested if the losing candidate's margin falls within one percentage point. Whether Hong's campaign will pursue that option remains an open question.
Several basic facts about the error remain unanswered. No official has explained how audit logs ended up on five of nine drives in place of election results, or whether the mistake affected any races beyond the gubernatorial primary. No names of the responsible officials have been released. No investigation has been announced.
Hong's stunning primary loss and the chaos surrounding the vote count landed at the intersection of two stories the Democratic Party would rather not discuss: the widening rift between its socialist wing and its establishment leadership, and the persistent inability of election offices in major cities to execute basic procedures without embarrassing breakdowns.
When the people running elections in America's biggest cities cannot get the right files onto the right thumb drives, voters have every reason to ask what else is going wrong, and who, exactly, is minding the store.
