Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders both declined to endorse fellow democratic socialist Francesca Hong in Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary, a snub that raises hard questions about whether the progressive left is quietly retreating from its own movement.
Hong, a Democratic Socialists of America member running for governor, faced reporters Monday, the day before Wisconsin's Democratic primary, and tried to explain why the two biggest names in American democratic socialism had left her without their backing. She offered praise instead of answers. Fox News Digital reported that Hong deflected the question, saying she has "so much respect for the senator and the congresswoman" and that they "are working tirelessly to make sure that we can flip Congress and the Senate and get Democrats wins in the midterms."
That is a polite non-answer. And it leaves the obvious follow-up hanging: if AOC and Sanders are working so hard for Democratic wins, why won't they back a candidate who shares their ideology in a major swing-state race?
The snub became public Sunday, when ABC's Jonathan Karl asked Ocasio-Cortez directly whether she would endorse Hong. Her answer was blunt.
"No, I haven't endorsed in that race. My focus has been in winning back the Congress, winning back the House and positioning ourselves to have the best, ah, chance possible to, to win the Senate."
That framing, midterm strategy over ideological solidarity, is a notable shift for a lawmaker who built her national brand on unapologetic progressive activism. AOC did not stop there. Karl pressed her on controversial comments Hong has made in the past, and Ocasio-Cortez offered a carefully hedged defense. She indicated that Hong has "made clear her present stances to her electorate" and "moved away from" prior remarks.
Then came the line that drew the most attention. AOC referenced a local New York City councilman and, laughing, quoted his assessment of the progressive movement's earlier phase.
"And I have a local city councilman that has this... saying, 'Woke 1 was crazy.' And I think that what's important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now."
The councilman she quoted was identified by the New York Post as Chi Ossé. AOC went further, arguing that rhetoric used "during lockdown" is "not rhetoric that we would use today", an acknowledgment that the defund-the-police era and its surrounding language were, at minimum, politically toxic.
For a lawmaker who has publicly defended democratic socialism on the House floor, that is a striking concession. Calling an entire phase of your movement "crazy", even through someone else's words, even with a laugh, amounts to an admission that the left's pandemic-era positioning did real damage.
Hong's challenge is not just the missing endorsements. It is a growing record of past statements that her campaign now struggles to reconcile with a statewide run.
The Washington Examiner reported that Hong's campaign denied she ever called for abolishing the U.S. Senate, despite an undeleted tweet in which she wrote exactly that: "Abolish the Senate." Her communications director, Allison Geyer, told reporters that Hong "has never called for abolishing the U.S. Senate" and that no one "cannot produce a single statement where she did, because it doesn't exist." The tweet, however, remained publicly visible.
Byron York, the Examiner's chief political correspondent, framed it bluntly: "Right now, she is running away from all of her record." That pattern, progressive candidates adopting radical positions to win activist support, then scrubbing those positions for a general electorate, is familiar enough to have its own playbook. But it is unusual for a candidate's own social media posts to directly contradict her campaign's denials in real time.
The broader tensions within the DSA and the Democratic Party's progressive wing add another layer. Hong is running as a DSA member in a state that swings elections. Wisconsin is not a safe blue stronghold where socialist credentials play well in a general election. And establishment Democrats in the state appear to know it.
Breitbart reported that the national DSA itself has also withheld its endorsement from Hong, joining AOC and Sanders on the sidelines. That means the candidate, the two most prominent democratic socialists in Congress, and the national organization that defines the movement are all disconnected from one another in this race.
Establishment Democrats in Wisconsin are reportedly making what Breitbart described as an "all-out, last-ditch effort" to stop Hong in the primary. The race includes Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Sen. Kelda Roys, and former Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration Joel Brennan, a field that gives Democratic primary voters several alternatives to the DSA-backed candidate.
AOC's explanation for the snub leaned on the idea that the political "Overton window", the range of ideas considered acceptable in mainstream debate, swung unusually wide during COVID-19. She told ABC that "the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place." On crime specifically, she added: "When we talk about crime today, it's fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down."
That is a remarkable statement from a lawmaker who spent years defending the defund movement. It amounts to saying: the left went too far, and now we talk about it differently. Whether that represents genuine reflection or political convenience is a question AOC's own future ambitions may eventually answer.
When asked Monday about AOC's "Woke 1" comment, Hong did not engage with the substance. Instead, she pivoted to economic messaging, suggesting that people "are opening their eyes to an economy that is deeply rigged against working-class people." She outlined a platform focused on "taxing the ultrarich," a moratorium on data centers, raising wages, universal childcare, and fully funding public schools.
That pivot is standard campaign discipline, steer away from an uncomfortable question and toward your preferred terrain. But it does not answer the underlying problem. If the two most prominent democratic socialists in America will not back you the day before a primary, and your own national organization stays silent, the message to voters is not subtle.
Hong insisted that a gubernatorial contest "is different from federal elections", implying that AOC and Sanders focus on congressional races, not state-level ones. That explanation might hold if either lawmaker had a history of staying out of governor's races. But endorsements from national figures in competitive primaries are routine, and the decision not to endorse carries its own weight.
The progressive movement's recent track record in competitive races outside deep-blue districts has not been encouraging. And AOC's willingness to laugh about "Woke 1" while declining to support a fellow DSA member suggests she has read the political map more carefully than Hong has.
Newsmax reported that AOC acknowledged defund-the-police rhetoric from the pandemic era is "not rhetoric that we would use today." That phrasing, "we would use", treats the language as a communications problem rather than a policy failure. It sidesteps whether the underlying ideas were wrong and focuses instead on whether the words played well.
AOC's claim that Hong has "moved away from" her prior comments raises its own question: moved away how? Hong's campaign denied she ever made one of her most documented statements. That is not moving away from a position. That is pretending the position never existed, while the evidence sits on her own social media feed.
For Wisconsin voters heading to the polls, the dynamic is clear enough. The candidate says she never said what she said. The movement's two biggest stars will not vouch for her. And the congresswoman who once championed every cause Hong represents now calls that era "crazy" and says the party talks about crime "fundamentally" differently now.
When Democrats fight over the direction of their party, the fault lines usually run between the establishment and the activist base. In Wisconsin, the fault line runs straight through the activist base itself, and the activists are the ones backing away.
If your own allies won't stand behind you the day before the vote, voters have every reason to ask what those allies already know.
