The Return of Normal

Last night was a pretty darn good night for the center of the Democratic Party.

Wisconsin is the place to start, because what happened there was remarkable.

Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist state representative from Madison, looked like she was running away with the Democratic primary for governor. David Crowley, the more mainstream Milwaukee County executive, actually dropped out of the race in July and endorsed Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez. Then Rodriguez’s campaign imploded over its finances, Crowley jumped back in ten days later with Gov. Tony Evers behind him, and suddenly he had about three weeks to put a campaign back together.

It looked hopeless. Public polling after Crowley reentered had Hong ahead of him by roughly 30 points.

Then voters started taking a harder look.

Hong spent the final stretch explaining years-old comments about canceling Thanksgiving, defunding and abolishing police, prison abolition and even her disdain for Valentine’s Day. Crowley spent it making a very simple argument: Wisconsin is one of the most competitive states in America, Tom Tiffany is waiting in November, and Democrats need somebody who can beat him.

Crowley then pulled off the biggest upset in recent memory.

I’ve been around a lot of campaigns and I can’t remember seeing a collapse quite like Hong’s. Going from 20-plus points ahead to losing by roughly 3,000 votes in a matter of weeks is more than a polling miss. That’s a voter revolt.

And I think the reason is pretty obvious: Democratic voters still care deeply about electability.

In a deep-blue congressional district in New York City, voters can choose the candidate who comes closest to their ideological ideal because the general election is an afterthought. Wisconsin is very different. Trump won it in 2024 and Republicans routinely win statewide there. Democratic voters knew exactly what was at stake.

It reminded me of 2020. Bernie Sanders came out of the early states with enormous momentum while Joe Biden was falling further behind. Then we got to South Carolina. I was one of the vulnerable House Democrats running that year, and there was no doubt in my mind that, that year, Biden was the safer nominee for Democrats like me. Ultimately, South Carolina voters agreed. They gave Biden a nearly 30-point win and completely changed the trajectory of the Democratic primaries.

Sometimes Democratic voters vote against the candidate who may be closest to them on policy because they believe somebody else gives us a better chance to win. Wisconsin just gave us another dramatic example.

Michigan also showed the flip side.

Abdul El-Sayed is very progressive, and Republicans will have plenty of policy positions to attack this fall. But El-Sayed makes up a lot of that vulnerability with personality and authenticity. He’s a doctor, a dad, a former athlete, and he generally talks like a normal person. You may disagree with him, but you believe that he believes what he’s saying.

Voters will forgive a surprising amount of disagreement when they trust the person making the argument. Hong became the opposite case study. There was simply too much weirdness to explain in a state where Democrats cannot afford much weirdness.

There’s another piece of all this that should scare Republicans:

Both wings of the Democratic Party are about as fired up as they can possibly be.

Everybody is showing up. Everybody wants to win. If those two coalitions - centrists and progressives - unite behind each other’s nominees in November, Republicans are in very serious trouble.

And while Wisconsin was about electability, last night’s primary in Connecticut was about something else Democrats are clearly ready for: generational change.

Longtime Democratic Congressman John Larson is 78 and has represented his Connecticut district since 1999. His primary opponent Luke Bronin is 46. Bronin beat him decisively in a race that became a referendum on age, generational change, and whether it was time to pass the baton.

After everything Democrats went through with Biden in 2024, voters have become much more willing to say enough is enough. And last night in Connecticut, they did. Bronin upset Larson.

That could help my old friend Seth Moulton in Massachusetts. Seth, a spry 47, is challenging Ed Markey, who turned 80 this summer and has spent nearly half a century (yes, half a century) in Congress. What once looked like an impossible primary is now genuinely competitive, with public polling putting Seth within roughly five or six points.

Put all of this together and I think Democrats are telling us something pretty clearly.

The center is alive and strong. The left is energized. Voters care enormously about electability. They’re hungry for generational change. And above all, they crave candidates who seem grounded, believable and normal.

If that coalition stays together in November, Democrats are going to have a very good year.

After a decade of political insanity, the return of normal may be exactly what the country is looking for.

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Want more from Joe? His new book, Life of the Party: How Democrats Lost America’s Trust — and How They Can Win It Back, is available for purchase now. It’s a sharp, honest argument for how Democrats can rebuild trust, speak plainly, and become a party voters are proud to support again.