Francesca Hong, a State Assembly member in Wisconsin, nearly just became the Democratic nominee for governor. The 37-year-old democratic socialist, a single mom and former restaurant worker, was leading in polls, and running on a platform of universal childcare, a data center moratorium, and raising the minimum wage. If elected, Hong would have been the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to become a governor, an extraordinary step forward for the socialist movement. Hong had an impressive background and supporters were “inspired by her atypical journey into politics, her authentic vibe and an organic approach to campaigning.” As a legislator she has been involved in efforts to introduce paid family leave, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and establish an Economic Bill of Rights.

And yet something strange happened as Hong’s campaign picked up momentum: key political figures on the left decided not to support her. Politico noted that while, in Wisconsin, “progressives are on the cusp of a huge win,” “their biggest stars are staying away.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders both refused to endorse Hong. “I don’t think so,” Sanders said, when asked if he would endorse, which led to an increase in criticism of Hong. AOC, unmoved by Hong’s shared background as a bartending democratic socialist, said the race was “local,” and made the entirely noncommittal statement “Francesca Hong has made clear her presence in her election.” Sanders, too, implied he didn’t endorse because likes to stay out of governors’ races—even though he had endorsed the gubernatorial campaign of Troy Jackson in Maine.

Then Hong lost by the thinnest of margins: less than a single percentage point, and only a few thousand votes. Since AOC and Bernie Sanders have immense power to motivate left voters, it is reasonable to think that their decision not to endorse or campaign for Hong is what made the difference. (The margin of difference was about the size of the crowd at a single Bernie Sanders rally; in 2025, he drew 3,500 people to an auditorium in Kenosha, Wisconsin.) For her part, Hong was very gracious about the non-endorsements, saying she has “so much respect for the senator and the congresswoman.”

Since I’m not a politician, I don’t have to be quite as gracious. Personally, I think this was an egregious failure of solidarity that set back the socialist movement, and I think Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez should be heavily criticized for their decision. DSA had its first opportunity to win a governor’s race, and it was essentially sabotaged by our leading left politicians.

The discussion around the decision not to support Hong has centered on Hong’s supposed weakness as a candidate. The idea is that Hong was simply not strong enough to run a general election, and so it would have been unwise to support her, because it would have meant winning the primary but then handing the governorship to a Republican. Hong was criticized for having said a number of things in the past that were excessively “woke” (supporting the defunding of police, criticizing Thanksgiving), and for using academic-lefty language (“proximity to whiteness”), as well as for her rather disappointing efforts to explain some of these positions. (I personally didn’t think she gave a great answer when she was asked about her views on Thanksgiving.)

And yet: Hong ran a remarkable campaign. For a socialist to win 300,000 votes in Wisconsin requires some effective organizing. Following the Mamdani playbook, she stayed focused on pocketbook issues, even as the media tried to focus on old tweets. And if the major national progressives had rallied behind her, she probably would have won a massive upset victory. Because I believe the left’s platform is compelling, and the centrist “electability” argument is overrated, I think she would have actually been in a good position against a Republican. The democratic socialist platform is precisely what you need in Wisconsin, and the political climate favors Democrats in November.

A lot of people who defend Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez argue that Hong simply wasn’t viable as a general election candidate. They largely support this by offering vibes, not proof. A typical example was Helen Lewis in the Atlantic, who called Hong a “lemon,” but did not actually demonstrate that Hong could not have won. In fact, some people I have argued with believe that Hong could have won, but still say it’s better that she didn’t. Adam Carlson of Zenith Research said “even if the blue environment helped get her across the finish line in November, perhaps she isn’t the first statewide standard bearer the socialist movement would want to be front and center.” But should the socialist movement really deliberately sabotage an opportunity to attain the governorship of Wisconsin because the person who achieved that extraordinary feat was “not the first statewide standard bearer” that Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders had hoped for? We can’t wait on our perfect candidates, we have to seize our opportunities.

Here’s what I think should have happened here: seeing that a democratic socialist had achieved the absolutely extraordinary distinction of being the frontrunner in a Midwestern governors’ race, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez should have sprung into action. Recognizing that Hong needed help with her campaign messaging, they should have rushed to Wisconsin, sat her down, and given her an absolute crash course in how to be an effective left communicator. They should have rushed resources to her, and rather than simply conclude that she “could not win in November”—which we do not know—done everything possible to assist. That is what a movement leader is supposed to do. Instead, on the eve of a critical primary, AOC waved away Hong’s remark by saying that “woke 1 was crazy,” and made national news by talking about her decision to freeze her eggs. (Not a frivolous topic by any means, especially in a climate where reproductive rights are under attack, but not the specific topic she should have been encouraging the media to focus on just at the moment a democratic socialist was poised to win a crucial election.)

An endorsement takes ten seconds to offer. Not offering it when this kind of opportunity is on the table strikes me as indefensible. Now, maybe there’s more that was going on behind the scenes, and Hong had further vulnerabilities that did not come out. I don’t know. Maybe Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez had access to information that I don’t. (I just edit a magazine in New Orleans, all I know is what I read in the papers!) But old cringey tweets are not a real scandal (Mamdani has ‘em, AOC has ‘em, and I’m sure I’ve got a few, although I’m not running for office, thank God.)

I do not exempt Hong from blame for her own defeat. Her messaging failures were real, and are her responsibility. But if we care about advancing the democratic socialist movement, we have to first and foremost practice solidarity. We have to lift each other up, help each other in moments when we’re under attack. What disturbed me about Sanders’ and AOC’s chilly remarks was how un-solidaristic they were. Not sticking together is what will destroy the democratic socialist movement over time. Heck, I hesitate even to criticize Sanders and AOC, and do it only sparingly, because I think it’s so destructive to the left for us to fight one another instead of the ruling class.

But the betrayal of Francesca Hong rubbed me the wrong way. Ro Khanna, who is not a democratic socialist, backed Hong, and defended his decision to do so. And yet the country’s most visible democratic socialists did not. In doing so, they threw away the chance for the movement to advance to governing a state. I think that was a serious mistake. Anyone who thinks it was politically sound only needs to look at the headlines. Here’s the New York Times: “A Stunning Loss in Wisconsin Shows the Limits of the Left: Francesca Hong’s defeat in the Democratic primary for governor defied expectations and may have shown the democratic socialist wave cannot reach beyond urban centers.” The Times is wrong, of course. Hong’s defeat showed nothing of the kind, because she would almost certainly have won if her fellow socialists had rallied behind her. In fact, her race showed that socialism is building power, because she came so close to winning the primary, just as Bernie’s 2016 campaign showed the increasing power of the left. But I can’t believe anyone, looking at the press coverage, could really believe it was a good idea for leftists to deliberately tank Hong. She deserved their support, and I hope we won’t see a mistake like this happen again. The more of these kinds of petty failures of solidarity we see, the less likely the left is to achieve real political gains in this country.