NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Amanda Litman, co-founder of the PAC Run For Something, about the results from the Aug. 11 Democratic primary elections. Here's a data point to consider. In Wisconsin, the margin of victory in the Democratic primary for governor is about half a percentage point, around 4,000 votes in over 750,000 votes cast.
That was one of several races last night and this summer, pitting more progressive candidates against more moderate ones. Let's try to pick out some trends with Amanda Litman. She's the president of Run for Something.
That's an organization supporting young Democrats who are seeking office. SUMMERS: I mean, there's just so much ground to cover on the map from a big primary day yesterday. I want to start in Wisconsin, where the Democratic primary for governor saw the more moderate candidate, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, prevail quite narrowly over state legislator Francesca Hong, who's a Democratic socialist.
And I'll just note that leading up to this race, for people who are watching the polls, Hong was overwhelmingly leading in most public polls. What is your big takeaway from that race? LITMAN: You know, people tuned in right in the last couple days.
We know that there was a ton of money spent on behalf of David Crowley. He was running a ton of ads on the air. And Francesca, who had ran a really strong campaign, started polling basically at 0%, had thousands of volunteers and came from behind, you know, really did crumble a little bit in the final week, did some interviews she, I think, came to regret, had a tough time running away from some of her past sillier tweets.
And David was able to close it out, in part, with the establishment really circling the wagons around him. You know, the polls captured a snapshot in time, but as we have seen, they are not predictive. SUMMERS: And so much of the conversation around Hong was really about whether she had the ability to win a general election in the swing state, especially given some of her previous statements, including supporting defunding the police, for example.
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