Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong has pushed a socialist wish list during her time in the state Assembly, backing everything from publicly funded grocery stores and a state-owned bank to race-based grant programs and doulas for pregnant women in solitary confinement, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of her record.Hong is the front-runner in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. She has worked to distinguish herself as a progressive voice in a crowded primary field. That strategy may work: a Wednesday Marquette University Law School poll found that Hong led the crop of Democrats by a 22-point margin, though more than one-third of voters remain undecided.The swing-state legislator received an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America, an insurgent force in the Democratic Party. The DSA’s Milwaukee chapter wrote that Hong would advance “our socialist movement to the state level.”
Hong’s legislative record backs that claim up.Hong has fought to ensure that prenatal care for women in solitary confinement includes, “if applicable,” doula services. She has also frequently pushed race-based grant programs, including funding for minorities to obtain social work licenses and become school counselors.Few of her initiatives have succeeded in the Wisconsin State Assembly, which has a nine-seat Republican majority. President Donald Trump won the state by 0.86 percentage points in 2024.Hong said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that, having spent nearly six years in the Wisconsin legislature, she is under “no illusions” about the position she would find herself in as governor.“I’ll put bills on the table that Republican legislators will have to explain to their own voters if they kill them,” she said.One of Hong’s flashiest legislative proposals is a network of publicly funded grocery stores, an idea that helped New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani clinch victory last year. The so-called Wisconsin Public Food Administration Authority would support local governments in the “development and operation of public grocery stores” and would operate a “statewide public food distribution network,” according to Hong’s legislation.Hong’s own professional background is in the food industry. After dropping out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009, she rose from a dishwasher to an executive chef in the Madison culinary scene before opening her own Japanese restaurant, Morris Ramen, with her ex-husband. Morris Ramen shuttered in 2024.Hong’s public-sector plans do not stop at grocery stores. She has also sponsored legislation to create the “Public Bank of Wisconsin,” which she says in her campaign materials is inspired by the Bank of North Dakota. Hong’s bank would leverage public deposits to provide low-cost loans and financing for small businesses, minority-owned and women-owned business enterprises, entrepreneurs, start-ups, farmers, and other borrowers.The bill describes how the bank would “further economic growth, create jobs, reduce greenhouse gases, and build and sustain affordable housing.”
