Hasan Piker predicts GOP wipeout as Evers casts doubt on Hong’s electability

Far-left streamer Hasan Piker predicted Aug. 2 that Republicans would be shut out of Wisconsin once the socialist political movement finished its work, delivering the declaration while campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Francesca Hong. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, meanwhile, backs Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Hong’s chief rival, as the party’s best hope to win in November.

Addressing a crowd at South Milwaukee High School, Piker said his movement would “bring back the working class to both Wisconsin and Michigan,” then added: “A Republican will never be elected in this state ever again once our movement is done.”

In remarks to Zeale News, CatholicVote Vice President of Advocacy Joshua Mercer urged Wisconsin voters to reject both Piker and Hong.

“Hasan Piker is a total radical who thinks America deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks. No candidate should ever campaign with him,” Mercer said. “Francesca Hong shared the stage with this radical because she is radical too. The good people of Wisconsin should reject Hasan Piker and Francesca Hong.”

Piker said during a 2019 livestream that “America deserved 9/11.” Amid the resulting backlash, he later called the remark “inappropriate” and said he “obviously” did not mean that America deserved the terrorist attacks.

More recently, Piker praised Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong as “one of the great leaders of this world.” As Zeale News previously reported, those remarks resurfaced after he campaigned for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Piker’s Aug. 2 appearance placed him onstage with Hong and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., less than two weeks before Wisconsin’s Aug. 11 primary. At another point in the rally, Piker promised supporters they would defeat likely Republican nominee Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., and ensure that Tiffany “never gets a seat of power ever again.”

Hong, 37, is a Madison state representative first elected in 2020. A self-described democratic socialist, she is endorsed by the Madison and Milwaukee chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). She entered the final stretch of the primary as the Democratic frontrunner after former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes withdrew from the race. Crowley is her principal remaining rival.

Hong’s rise has also produced an electability revolt inside her own party. 

Evers, who is not seeking a third term, has abandoned his neutrality to endorse Crowley and called him “the best candidate to beat Tom Tiffany.” Asked this week whether he thought Hong could beat Tiffany, Evers answered “probably not.”

Several top Democratic strategists have separately told WISN that Hong cannot win statewide and that Crowley’s return was an attempt to prevent her from taking the nomination.

Hong has built her campaign around what she calls “permanent affordability,” with proposals that include universal childcare, public grocery stores, a $20 minimum wage, and a state-run bank. During a June appearance on Piker’s livestream, she said, “If it is radical to have free child care and public grocery stores, I would say, let’s be radical, let’s embrace that.”

The national DSA program offers broader context for the movement Piker invoked. As Zeale News previously reported, the organization’s 2025-2026 agenda calls for a government takeover of major corporations, full voting rights for noncitizens, and a new constitution establishing a “single federal legislature” in place of the House and Senate.

Asked after Sunday’s rally whether campaigning with Piker was risky, Hong said, “It would be a risk not to try to build the broadest coalition possible.” 

She argued that Piker and Omar come under attacks by members of the political right because “they know that they’re losing.”

Tiffany’s campaign responded, “Francesca Hong choosing to campaign with individuals who said America ‘deserved 9/11,’ called communism the ‘honorable end goal,’ and believe capitalists should be killed is certainly a choice.”

Piker’s reference to Michigan also came as he continued to campaign for El-Sayed, appearing with the candidate in Detroit on Monday, the eve of Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Trump-endorsed Republican Senate candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers previously said El-Sayed’s events with Piker showed that Michigan Democrats were “flocking to the most radical, anti-American figures imaginable.”

The backlash has extended beyond Republicans. Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville said Aug. 2 that if Piker becomes “a force” in the Democratic Party, “I’m out of here.”