The big story on CNN and MSNOW this morning is that Democratic-Socialist Francesca Hong lost the Democratic primary for Governor in Wisconsin. CNN is relieved, MSNOW is kind of sad. Meanwhile, Fox News wants to focus on the WNBA, because everything about it makes progressives, women, blacks, lesbians, and supporters of trans-males look terrible.
You can see the results above: Hong conceded a bit before 95% of the votes had been counted. Ann Althouse finds that susp…interesting. The Wisconsin bloggress observes,
“Why did Hong concede so quickly, with such a narrow margin? Why not wait at least until all the votes are in? Why not ask for a recount? She’s entitled to a recount if the margin is 1% or less, but it’s only paid for by the state if it’s less than 0.25%. To drag out the process after the primary would help Tiffany. That’s good reason not to indulge in a recount, but why not wait until all 100% of the votes are counted? She conceded when it was less than 95%.”
There is certainly a lot to trigger conspiracy theorists about this result. The winner, David Crowley, the black Milwaukee County executive, barely eked out a victory after his candidacy was resurrected late in the campaign. Democrats decided that Hong couldn’t win the general election, so Gov. Tony Evers (D), who had pledged to stay out of the race to replace him, became active in the effort to beat Hong. In July, Crowley had dropped out of the race, saying that it was “clear that I will not be the Democratic nominee for governor.” Then Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who was the leading “establishment” candidate left, dropped out of the race.
Crowley was being pressured to re-run, and said he was praying for guidance. His wife asked for a “sign”that her husband should rejoin the race: if she saw a red bird, her husband should jump back in to the primary. I’m not kidding, unfortunately. She said she did see a red bird, and so 10 days after quitting, he spouse was in the race again. This is how seriously American take democracy in 2021. Who would vote for a candidate for governor who makes decisions like that? Not me. I’d rather vote for the bird.
More ethics-related notes:
Ethics Alarms 
Polls are propaganda. They could be accurate or wild mischaracterizations depending on what impact the people who pay for the polls think they will elicit.
The bigger thing that will raise eyebrows is the “just enough” nature of Crowley’s win.
Most commentary says that it was the late campaign revelations like her anti-Thanksgiving twee that cost Hong the nomination. If that’s true, and it may well be, why does anyone support early voting? Early voting encourages ignorant, uninformed, blindly-partisan votes and insulate candidates from the fall-out from late campaign scandals and gaffes.
The question seems to answer itself, doesn’t it? If you’re a candidate or a party supporting a candidate, it seems that the earlier people vote, the better chance you have to get votes.
From a Real Clear Politics piece:
An apparent glitch in the results of roughly 20,000 Democratic absentee ballots in Milwaukee County also threw a late-night wrench in news outlets’ ability to call the race. Five of nine flash-drive memory sticks holding absentee-election results had the required audit information but not the actual results. The drives then needed to be returned to the central count location to be corrected and brought back to the county courthouse, delaying election results by at least an hour. Election officials attributed the glitch to “human error” and said a wrong button was pushed.
What? Flash drives were being delivered here and there around Milwaukee? By Uber drivers? Flash drives? Why not us print outs on green bar paper?
Also, I have to wonder whether the black Democrat had to be boosted above the Chinese Democrat.