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Experts Question Why Polls Were So Wrong In The Wisconsin Primary
Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong entered primary day as the prohibitive favorite to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for Wisconsin governor.
Yet, she wound up narrowly losing to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley instead.
Crowley beat Hong by 0.4 percentage points, a margin of about 3,000 votes, in a race that polling had shown Hong leading by about 20 points for weeks.
Despite the slim margin, Hong ultimately conceded the race, and now Crowley will face Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany in November.
The gap between expectation and outcome sent pollsters, analysts, and commentators searching for an explanation, and their answers vary.
Marquette Law School polled the race twice, catching it at two different stages of collapse. The first, taken July 8-16 while Crowley sat out, had Hong at 26%, Barnes at 15%, and Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez at 11%. Rodriguez dropped out the next day. Crowley climbed back in July 18, and by the time Marquette polled again July 22-27, Hong had jumped to 38%, Barnes had ticked up to 16%, and Crowley had 7%. Barnes quit three days after that.
Both polls had small samples, margins of error above four points, and undecided voters in the 30s and 40s. Neither one could have caught what came next. Hong's 2021 posts calling for canceling Thanksgiving resurfaced in early August. She defended the posts on CNN, then reversed course on Politico, calling Thanksgiving her favorite holiday. The reversal revived old criticism of her past comments on her own "proximity to whiteness."
By August 3-6, when State Navigate polled a settled field, Hong still led, 44% to Crowley's 22%, with Sen. Kelda Roys at 11%. Kalshi had her as a 95.5% favorite as late as the Monday before the primary. By Tuesday afternoon, that number had fallen to 58%. Hong finished at 39.4%, close to what the late polls predicted. Crowley was the miss. The polls undercounted him by a wide margin. Roys took 7.5%, and former state official Joel Brennan took 4.7%, enough combined that their absence could have changed who won.
Pollster Nate Silver posted his confusion Tuesday night on X.
"Hong might come back, but wtf is up with these primary polls?" he wrote.
Silver followed up, noting that many modern polls function as statistical models rather than raw snapshots, writing that "primaries are very hard to model from first principles, whereas general elections are relatively easy given very high partisanship and usually predictable demographic relationships."
Political scientist Larry Sabato pointed to a similar failure in Michigan days earlier, where Democratic Socialist Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the Senate primary. Sabato wrote, "What amazes me is that just a few days ago, the same polling train wreck happened in Michigan. Few learned anything."
Pollster Frank Luntz said he agreed with Sabato's assessment.
CNN's Harry Enten suggested pollsters oversampled young progressive voters, inflating apparent support for socialist-aligned candidates in both states.
“When you kind of look at the polling, you go, ‘Hey, wait a minute, maybe these polls had too many younger folks in them.’ And I think that speaks to something larger potentially, which is all these pollings, which are sewing progressivism on the left, the far left rising, seeing Democratic socialism, especially in the case of Wisconsin, rising, you got to look at these results and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Maybe, Johnny, maybe these polls are overestimating how much that Democratic socialism is rising within the Democratic Party,’ because in two key statewide races in a row, what we've seen is the lefties being vastly overestimated. And in the case of Wisconsin, the Democratic socialists being vastly overestimated by 20 points.”
The polls may have given Francesca Hong a coronation, but Wisconsin voters had other plans.
David Crowley’s comeback underscores the cost of allowing fashionable ideology, activist energy, and faulty assumptions to replace a serious reading of the electorate, and once again, the polling industry has egg on its face.
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Shocked! ICE To Equip Officers With Gloves That Can Deliver Electric Zaps
Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to spend up to $20 million on gloves that can deliver electric shocks for its agents, according to a notice published by the Department of Homeland Security on Aug. 10.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents walk outside the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, Calif., on July 27, 2026. Blake Fagan/AFP via Getty ImagesThe devices, known as CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E, or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, are expected to be delivered by March 31, 2027, according to the notice.
The notice refers to the gloves as "conductive distraction and de-escalation" devices, which ICE seeks to buy for Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement Removal Operations officers and agents.
The device manufacturer, Compliant Technologies, states on its website that the devices were designed "to supplement existing tools for law enforcement, corrections, security, EMS [Emergency Medical Services] and the military."
The devices must be applied directly to someone's skin and are ineffective through clothing or hair, according to the user manual. No more than two gloves should be used at a time, with each application lasting not more than 15 seconds, it states.
Compliant Technologies said the gloves should not be used to respond to "verbal defiance or belligerence," as punishment or for torture. The company also warned against using them on children, elderly people, pregnant women, or people with disabilities.
The manual also recommends that the gloves be deployed as necessary to "accomplish lawful objectives within the scope of the agency's policies" when a suspect becomes violent to the point of endangering the officer or the public.
Officers must be trained and certified to use the gloves, with recertification required every two years, according to the manual.
The Epoch Times reached out to both the Department of Homeland Security and Compliant Technologies for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director for policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed doubt that ICE officers would use the devices appropriately and questioned why the devices would be necessary for civil immigration enforcement.
"ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do," she said. "Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public."
Meanwhile, acting ICE Director David Venturella announced on Aug. 8 that federal agents will be equipped with body-worn cameras by the end of the month in a move to increase "transparency and accountability."
The cameras are a key measure that congressional Democrats demanded during a months-long funding dispute earlier this year over the funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Democratic lawmakers in Congress have demanded that ICE be reformed following the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal agents during operations in Minnesota earlier this year.
Troy Myers and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Mamdani's Socialist Utopia Collides With Reality As Manhattan Rents Hit Record
Socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani built his political campaign by relentlessly attacking America and, most importantly, portraying capitalism as the root cause of nearly every social problem, from affordability pressures to soaring rents.
Voters were sold the idea that his administration could deliver an instant utopian transformation built on free bus rides, government-run grocery stores, and cheap housing.
However, like every Marxist before him, Mamdani's vision of utopia is not grounded in economic reality. The dream pitched to millions across the metropolitan area is now colliding with market reality: a continuing nightmare for renters. Even with Mamdani's rent freeze and threat of a pied-à-terre tax, rents are still rising.
Delving into the granular data, a report from the New York Post, citing data from Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, shows that Manhattan's average monthly rent jumped to a record $6,655 in July, up 10% from a year earlier.
The median rent reached $5,295, a 6% increase from the same month one year ago, according to the data. Average rents rose across every apartment category, including 8% for studios to $4,088, 7% for one-bedroom apartments to $5,486 and 13% for two-bedroom apartments to $8,054. Three-bedroom apartments averaged $12,228, up 12%.
NYC's rental vacancy rate has fallen to 1.49%, the lowest since 1968 and well below the 5% threshold typically associated with a landlord's market. Separately, state data show that roughly 57,000 rent-stabilized apartments sat vacant in 2025
A severe housing shortage, elevated mortgage rates, and new rental regulations have intensified competition for available apartments. Let's not forget that a recent Center for Migration Studies report showed that more than 500,000 illegal aliens live in NYC.
Via Pew Research
Yet the socialists in City Hall have no interest in deporting illegal aliens - that because that's their imported voter bloc. These illegals add pressure to the housing supply and force rental prices higher. Even the Dallas Federal Reserve recently confirmed that the illegal alien invasion under the Biden-Harris regime led to pressure on rents and housing prices on a national level.
To begin the week, a New York judge temporarily halted Mamdani's socialist tax experiment on second homes. The far-left in City Hall also published a controversial list doxing more than 900,000 homeowners, exposing them to targeting by radical activists, including Luigi-worshipping far-left activists. Maybe the socialists' game is not affordability but more about seizing private property.
President Trump commented on Truth Social yesterday about Mamdani's dangerous tax "experiment" before it "destroys what was once a great City and State." He said the federal government is looking for ways to challenge the tax scheme.
Related:
- Rich-Kid Mamdani Ally Wants To "Abolish Rent"; Could Hawley Reform Bill Stop College Indoctrination?
Beyond tax schemes, doxing wealthy, and attempted rent freezes, Mamdani and the radical left are trying to build more housing, but that takes time, something they do not have if they hope to prove that their utopian vision works. These policies may work in the short run if implemented, but over the long term, such fundamentally flawed policies have repeatedly failed around the world.
Meanwhile...
Reality Bites: Socialist NYC Mayor Mamdani Turns To Capitalist Bankers For Help https://t.co/C18ePozoCI
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 7, 2026Read: South America Just Rejected Socialism. So Why Is North America Buying It?
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/12/2026 - 20:30