Wisconsin’s Frontrunner for Governor Wanted to Cancel Thanksgiving. That Wasn’t the Radical Part.
State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) has represented Wisconsin’s 76th Assembly District since 2021. As of this week she is also the runaway frontrunner to become the Democratic nominee for governor — a Marquette Law School poll released July 29 put her at 38% support, more than double her nearest rival, and she is a confirmed, dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
In November 2020 she posted on then-Twitter: “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621.” The post is deleted now, but it resurfaced in late July as her campaign turned into the biggest live test democratic socialism has faced in a presidential battleground state.
That post is real, and it is the most specific basis this piece could find for the “she wants to cancel the holidays” case against her. But it is also the least consequential thing in her record. Hong has spent five years writing actual bills, and Wisconsin votes on whether one of them becomes governing policy in seven days.
- 17.7% the top income-tax bracket her own bill, AB 1209, would create on income above a million dollars a year — higher than any state's current top rate — Wisconsin State Legislature, AB 1209
- 38% her share of likely Democratic primary voters in the last Marquette Law School poll before the August 11 vote — more than double the second-place finisher — Marquette Law School Poll, July 29, 2026
- 2020 the year Hong wrote she supported "defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police" — the same year she joined DSA — CNN KFile / Fox News
Hong, 37, spent a decade and a half in Madison kitchens — dishwasher, line cook, executive chef, restaurant co-owner, and currently a part-time bartender — before she was elected to the Assembly in 2020, becoming the first Asian American and first Korean American ever to serve in the Wisconsin Legislature. She sits on the Assembly’s four-member Socialist Caucus alongside Reps. Christian Phelps and Ryan Clancy, and she has been a dues-paying DSA member since 2020, a fact she confirmed directly on Fox News rather than dispute it.
She launched her campaign for governor on September 17, 2025, to succeed Gov. Tony Evers (D), who is not seeking reelection. The Democratic field has thinned fast: former WEDC Secretary Missy Hughes exited in June, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out July 17, and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes dropped out July 30 — the day after that Marquette poll showed Hong 22 points ahead of him. Remaining in the race are Hong, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley (D), state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), and businessman Joel Brennan (D). The primary is August 11. Whoever wins is expected to face Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), a Trump-endorsed member of Congress.
Here is the post in full, as Fox News Digital and other outlets reported it after it resurfaced in late July: “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx and women, so be it.” It went up in November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Hong later deleted it. It is a real post from her own account, and it is specifically about Thanksgiving — this piece found no comparable statement from her about Christmas or any other holiday, and none should be inferred.
On CNN this week, anchor Kaitlan Collins asked Hong directly: did she still believe Thanksgiving should be canceled? Hong didn’t answer yes or no. She talked about cooking a Thanksgiving meal for the community at 16, called the holiday “incredibly painful for many people in our communities,” and said “views can evolve.” It is the same non-denial she has given on every other resurfaced post this campaign — acknowledge the post existed, reframe it, decline to say whether she still holds it.
The “evolve” line covers more ground than one holiday. In August 2020, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Hong wrote that she supported “defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police” — first reported by CNN’s KFile in May 2026. On February 13, 2021, the day the Senate voted to acquit President Trump in his second impeachment trial, she posted two words: “Abolish the Senate.” It is still live on her account.
Abolish the Senate.
Both posts surfaced only once she became the frontrunner, and both got the same treatment in Dana Perino’s July 31 “America’s Newsroom” interview on Fox News. Pressed on whether voters should take her at her word on police abolition, Hong said, “I believe that people can evolve,” then added, “The governor cannot defund the police, and I won’t defund the police.” On the Senate post, her campaign first told Fox she did not recall writing it; on air, she called abolishing the Senate “nonsensical and non-practical at this time” — a phrase that concedes the position without quite disavowing it.
“Right now, she is running away from all of her record. There is a tweet online right now, never deleted, that says, 'Abolish the Senate.'”
Byron York · Washington Examiner · July 31, 2026
Old posts are one thing. Hong is a sitting legislator with a bill-authoring record on file at the Wisconsin Legislature, and it maps closely onto the platform she is now running on. AB 1209, which she authored, creates a fifth individual income-tax bracket at 17.30% for 2025 and 17.70% after — on income above $750,000 for single filers or $1,000,000 for joint filers. Wisconsin Right Now and the MacIver Institute, in their coverage of the bill, both note that no state currently taxes income anywhere near that rate — California, the current highest, tops out at 14.4%.
In a televised primary debate, Hong described her own tax plan as a modest step — roughly nine-tenths of a percentage point, landing near 8.55%, only on income past the millionth dollar.
AB 1209’s actual text, filed under her own name with the Wisconsin Legislature, sets the new bracket at 17.30% rising to 17.70%. Wisconsin Right Now and the MacIver Institute both flagged the gap between what she told voters on stage and what the bill she introduced says on paper.
Her broader platform, published on her own campaign site, runs further left than the tax bracket alone. AB 1221, which she authored, would create a “Wisconsin Public Food Administration Authority” — state-run grocery stores. She has proposed a state-owned Wisconsin Public Bank modeled on North Dakota’s, a $20-an-hour minimum wage indexed to cost of living, a full repeal of Act 10 (the 2011 law restricting public-sector collective bargaining) and 2015 Act 1 (Wisconsin’s right-to-work law), and a one-year moratorium on new data-center construction. None of this is inferred from old social media — it is the platform she is campaigning on this week, in her own words.
Wisconsin's lowest-earning households pay over 10% of their income in state and local taxes, while the richest pay just 6.6%. Our plan shifts more of the burden to the wealthy and big corporations to lower property taxes and fund public services.
On August 2, Hong headlined a rally at South Milwaukee High School with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who told the crowd he was in “the people’s republic of Wisconsin, the heart of the historic american socialist movement,” and that “we are going to elect francesca hong as this beautiful state’s next governor,” according to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Capitol reporter Molly Beck.
Hasan Piker says he is in Wisconsin for Democratic candidate for governor Francesca Hong: 'i am in the people's republic of wisconsin, the heart of the historic american socialist movement... we are going to elect francesca hong as this beautiful states next governor.'
It was not the pair’s first appearance together. In a late-June rapid-fire interview on Piker’s show, Hong endorsed state-run grocery stores and abolishing ICE, and said she would “tentatively” support erecting a statue of former Gov. Scott Walker (R) — “for the sole purpose that people can deface it.” Walker has since warned publicly that Hong’s “radical rhetoric” would make the state “unsafe.” Republican Governors Association communications director Kollin Compton has taken to calling her “the Mamdani of the Midwest,” after New York City’s democratic-socialist mayor.
The one specific, verifiable “cancel the holidays” claim in Francesca Hong’s record is a since-deleted 2020 post about Thanksgiving — real, and precisely that, nothing broader. What’s bigger is everything around it: a confirmed DSA membership, an unretracted 2021 call to abolish the Senate, a 2020 call to defund and eventually abolish police, and a governing platform — state-run grocery stores, a state bank, a repealed right-to-work law, and a top tax bracket her own bill sets at 17.7%, higher than any state currently charges — that she is running on, not walking back. Wisconsin decides in seven days.
