Wisconsin politics has become a bellwether for American politics: the costs of living keep climbing, public institutions have been hollowed out, and right-wing politicians respond to insecurity by trying to turn resentment into a governing strategy. Across the country, Donald Trump’s authoritarian hard right is testing how far it can go. But the story of the moment isn’t only one of reaction. In city after city, democratic socialists have started to notch real breakthroughs — proving that when the Left runs on material demands like rent relief, health care, and public investment, it can energize voters who’ve spent decades being told politics can’t improve their lives.

That mix of danger and possibility has deep roots in Wisconsin itself. Long before “democratic socialism” became a national lightning rod, the state produced America’s most successful socialist organization — the “sewer socialists,” who governed Milwaukee for nearly fifty years by fighting for and delivering meaningful improvements to the lives of working people. Standing in that tradition, Francesca Hong is a democratic socialist, service industry worker, and single mother currently serving in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Now she’s running for governor and currently seeking an endorsement from the state’s Democratic Socialists of America chapters on a platform centered on affordability, working-class organizing, and rebuilding a politics that puts ordinary people first.