Wisconsin Republicans compiled a massive opposition research file cataloging years of far-left statements by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, but her own party's voters rejected her before the GOP ever got the chance to use it.
The 349-page document, prepared by the campaign of Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, surfaced after Hong lost the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary on August 12. A source provided the full file, marked "privileged and confidential", to Puck News, which reported on its contents. The file detailed years of Hong's public statements and legislative votes on policing, immigration, race, and transgender policy, assembling the kind of record that would have made for a brutal general-election campaign in a state rated a toss-up.
Instead, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley beat Hong in the primary, denying Tiffany the matchup his team had spent months preparing for. The research file now stands as a catalog of positions too far left even for Democratic primary voters in a swing state, and a window into just how much material Republicans had ready to deploy.
The Tiffany campaign's file drew on Hong's own words, votes, and social media activity stretching back to at least 2020. Hong, a Madison state lawmaker and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had built a record well to the left of the Wisconsin electorate.
On law enforcement, the file documented Hong's calls to dismantle what she termed the "carceral system." She described police as part of a system rooted in white supremacy. She publicly supported abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and, per the research file, referred to ICE agents as "terrorists" and "fascists."
At a 2021 rally in Madison, Hong said all immigrants should receive citizenship. That same year, she backed a resolution declaring systemic racism a "public health crisis" and calling for an "equity-oriented country and society." In 2020, she described gentrification as "violence" against black residents.
On her X profile, Hong listed her location as "occupied Ho-Chunk Land" rather than Madison, the city she represented in the state legislature.
Republicans devoted a full 10 pages of the file to Hong's record on transgender and gender-related policies alone. In 2021, she backed a taxpayer-funded task force to examine barriers facing intersex and "gender nonconforming individuals." By 2022, she was using the term "pregnant people." In 2023, she voted against legislation that would have prohibited sex-change surgeries on minors. She supported making Dane County, the Madison-area county, a sanctuary for transgender and nonbinary residents and opposed a bill that would have required public school sports teams to be classified as male, female, or co-ed.
Hong entered the primary as the frontrunner. Newsmax reported she maintained a lead in much of the public polling ahead of the vote, and Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki described her appeal in populist terms:
"She is in the pocket that you want to be when people are antiestablishment, pissed off at politicians, and looking for something different."
Hong herself leaned into that framing. "When people tell me that I'm one of them as the working-class candidate, what Democrats might be, and what other candidates might be getting wrong, is that people want someone that cares," she said.
But the establishment had other plans. Governor Tony Evers, who chose not to seek re-election, endorsed Crowley. And Hong's past social media posts, supporting defunding or abolishing police, became a persistent liability during the campaign. She tried to distance herself from some of those earlier remarks and from the national DSA organization, but the record was already written, and much of it now sits in a 349-page file that her Republican opponents were more than happy to compile.
Had Hong won the primary, she would have become one of the highest-profile democratic socialists to compete for statewide office in the modern era, in a general election rated a toss-up by the Cook Political Report. Wisconsin Democrats decided that was a gamble they could not afford.
Fox News reported that Governor Evers wasted no time rallying behind his preferred candidate after the results came in:
"Tonight's all about @DavidCCrowley. He's earned this win and the accolades. I am so proud of David, he's the future of our Party, and I can't wait for him to be our next governor."
The general election will pit Crowley against Tiffany, who is backed by President Donald Trump. Tiffany's campaign now faces a different opponent than the one it spent months preparing to run against, and a very different set of vulnerabilities to exploit.
Hong's primary defeat did not happen in a vacuum. She faced sustained criticism during the campaign over her calls to defund police, her remarks about canceling Thanksgiving, and her statements about white supremacy. Those attacks came not just from Republicans watching from the sideline but from within her own party, where electability concerns ran high in a state both sides view as a must-win.
The opposition research file Breitbart News reported on tells a straightforward story: Republicans saw Hong as a gift. A DSA member who called ICE agents "terrorists," voted to protect sex-change surgeries on minors, and wanted to dismantle the criminal justice system would have given Tiffany a clean contrast in a general election where every swing voter matters.
Democratic primary voters, to their tactical credit, recognized the same thing. Crowley now carries the party's banner into November without 349 pages of opposition research pre-loaded and ready to fire.
But the file's existence is still instructive. It shows that the positions Hong championed, abolishing ICE, dismantling policing, redefining biological reality in state law, are not fringe curiosities. They are the stated convictions of elected Democratic officials, put on the record through votes, resolutions, and public rallies. Hong lost. The ideas she ran on remain very much alive inside her party.
Wisconsin Democrats chose the safer candidate. Whether they chose to reckon with why they needed one is another question entirely.
