Will Voters Think Francesca Hong Is Too Radical? Here’s Where She Stands.
The democratic socialist is the front-runner to win the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin on Tuesday.
Francesca Hong, a chef and state lawmaker, is the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor. If she wins the primary on Tuesday, Ms. Hong, a democratic socialist who has staked out a position to the left of her party, will have triumphed over several candidates considered more moderate, centrist Democrats. Her policy goals and social media rhetoric have raised eyebrows among some Democratic voters, who are questioning whether her views are too extreme to represent Wisconsin’s many moderates and independents.
Here are four of her most provocative positions to date.
She’s for reduced police funding.
In her five years as a Democratic legislator, Ms. Hong has expressed support for reducing funding for police departments and even abolishing law enforcement. She has also said she believes that the police exist to uphold white supremacy.
Ms. Hong has backed away from those statements in recent days. During a televised debate on July 28, she said “no” when asked if she would sign legislation reducing funding for police. And in a podcast interview, she said, “I will not abolish the police.”
“I want to focus on stopping violent crime and giving law enforcement the resources and the training that they need but ensure that we are also holding accountable law enforcement that does not follow the law,” she added.
She wants to tax the rich.
This year, Ms. Hong introduced a bill in the State Assembly that would create a new income tax bracket of 17.3 percent for individuals making at least $750,000 and for joint filers making $1 million or more. Wisconsin’s current individual income tax rates vary from 3.5 percent to 7.6 percent.
The state is not exactly bursting with millionaires, and critics of her plan have questioned whether it would have a real impact on state coffers — or, instead, scare wealthy taxpayers away. Asked during a candidate debate whether her proposal might drive Wisconsin millionaires to leave the state, she did not answer directly.
“You know, discussing that hypothetical is a little bit — I’m confused about that,” she said.
She has called for abolishing ICE.
When federal immigration authorities began a nationwide crackdown in 2025 that also targeted people in Wisconsin, Ms. Hong was outspoken in her opposition to the arrests.
She supports a ban on face coverings for all law enforcement in Wisconsin, including federal agents, and wants to make it illegal for any state or local government official to help detain people solely for immigration violations.
Ms. Hong has also made clear that she does not believe ICE should even exist. “Abolishing ICE isn’t radical — it’s good policy,” she said on social media in January.
She really doesn’t like Valentine’s Day.
Some of Ms. Hong’s most attention-grabbing social media posts have focused on holidays that are cherished by many Americans — and her own distaste for them.
“I do not enjoy fireworks,” she wrote several days before the Fourth of July in 2019. Halloween, she said in 2025, is “not my thing.” Thanksgiving is a “colonizer holiday” that people should not gather to honor, she posted in 2020. Valentine’s Day, she wrote in 2022, brings out “the worst of humanity” on a day “capitalism tells you how to show love.”
Allison Geyer, a Hong campaign spokeswoman, said that the increased scrutiny on Ms. Hong is “what happens when you are emerging as the front-runner,” adding that some of the posts were written during “peak woke back in the 2020s.”
Even Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, a Democrat who endorsed one of Ms. Hong’s opponents, has said that her social media posts would make it difficult for her to beat Representative Tom Tiffany, the likely Republican nominee, in November.
“She has spent her entire campaign dealing not with the issues, but what’s on the Twitter,” he said.
In interviews over the last several days, Ms. Hong has tried to backtrack. Asked what her favorite holiday is, she said with a half-smile, “Thanksgiving.”
“I don’t want to cancel it,” she said in an interview with Politico. “I actually love it.”
She added that she is “kind of a curmudgeon” about holidays in general.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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