WISCONSIN — Despite trailing by nearly 20 points in some pre-election polls, David Crowley captured the Democratic nomination for governor on Tuesday night. Crowley won with 39.81 percent of the vote while Francesca Hong received 39.33 percent. The race was called after absentee ballots from Milwaukee were reported around 2:20 a.m.
For Crowley, his win was a long and winding road that saw him suspend his campaign earlier in the Summer, only to get back into the race as Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez and then former Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes both dropped out. Crowley pulled off the victory with the help and endorsement of current governor Tony Evers.
Dane County and Outagamie County went to Hong by a margin of 7 points and she was able to pull off a 5 point victory in Brown County (home of Green Bay.) However, Crowley won his home county of Milwaukee by a 1.6 percent margin and ran up big numbers with an 11 point win in Waukesha County and a 9 point win in Racine County. At the end, Crowley secured enough of a margin to win by nearly 4,000 votes.
On the Republican side, Representative Tom Tiffany, best known for being an election denier, won with minimal opposition. The race is considered a toss up in November.
Other Wisconsin Results
Lt Governor: Democrat Sarah Godlewski ran uncontested and David Varnam won the Republican nomination with 55.5% of the vote.
In a closely watched primary, Democrats nominated Rebecca Cooke to take on Derrick Van Orden, a scandal plagued Congressman, in the Third Congressional District. The seat is considered one of the most likely to flip from Republican to Democrat in the country. Cooke defeated Emily Berge with 60.5% of the vote.
Attorney General: Incumbent Josh Kaul won the Democratic nomination and Eric Toney won the Republican nomination.
Turnout tells a story: Democrats once again turned out in far greater numbers than Republicans. In the race for Governor, a total of 791,957 votes had been cast in the Democratic primary as of press time. In contrast the Republican primary only had a total of 490,720 votes counted. The same turnout differential played out in Minnesota last night. Minnesota had competitive primaries on both sides of the ballot.
