Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong struggled Friday to square her past calls to abolish the police with her current campaign message when Fox News host Dana Perino pressed her on the record.
Hong sat for the interview on America’s Newsroom. The state representative belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and pays dues. Perino pressed her on old posts. Those posts backed defunding police, abolishing the Senate, and getting rid of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Perino asked why voters should not take Hong at her word on police abolition. Hong pivoted to her economic pitch.
“As a Democratic Socialist, what that means is I want to put working class people first,” Hong said.
“How does defunding the police put working class people first?” Perino asked.
Hong has a long record on the issue. In a 2020 post first reported by CNN, she wrote that she supported “defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.” She went further the next year.
“Police exist to uphold white supremacy,” Hong wrote in 2021. “Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.”
On Friday, the candidate distanced herself from that record without disowning it, saying she believes “people can evolve.”
“The governor cannot defund the police, and I won’t defund the police,” Hong said. “But I will invest in the things we know prevent crime.”
Hong confirmed she has been a dues-paying DSA member in her Madison home chapter since 2020. She rejected some of the group’s more sweeping goals, calling the push to abolish the U.S. Senate “nonsensical and non-practical at this time” and declining to back eliminating the Supreme Court.
Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican frontrunner, has gone after Hong for the same posts. He says she is trying to bury her own record.
“Democrat Socialist Francesca Hong can flip-flop all she wants, but she can’t hide who she is,” Tiffany said. “She’s a card-carrying socialist who called to abolish the police, ICE, and even the U.S. Senate.”
Hong leads recent polling in the crowded Democrat primary, which is set for August 11. Days earlier, she dodged repeated questions from a Politico reporter about whether she still wants to abolish police, offering winding non-answers about building “systems of care.” Hong has also called ICE the “enforcers of fascism” and floated deploying the National Guard to arrest federal agents.
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