DAVID MARCUS: Why it's too late for Dems to ditch Piker and his America-hating socialism

Democrats scored a narrow, but ultimately pyrrhic, victory in Wisconsin Tuesday night, as the wacky Thanksgiving-hating and Hasan Piker-backed gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong lost the primary to a more moderate candidate.

But their socialism problem is far from cured.

Just as in Michigan two weeks ago, the polls in this Democratic primary reflected about as much reality as Alice in Wonderland, as all of them had Hong with a seemingly insurmountable lead of over 15 points.

The prediction markets had Hong’s chances of winning at 96% on Tuesday morning, but something happened on the way to her coronation.

Actual flesh-and-blood voters decided that socialist policies such as abolishing police and ICE aren’t really what they want.

DEMOCRAT ESTABLISHMENT STRIKES BACK AS SOCIALIST CANDIDATE DOWNED IN BATTLEGROUND PRIMARY This column, based on reporting from the ground in the Midwest, has been warning for weeks that the polls have been absurdly favoring socialist candidates such as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary who squeaked out a 1-point win after every survey put him up double digits.

This has left Democrats with the most serious problem they have faced in a generation, because half of their voters seem to want a socialist utopia while the other half just wants a normal, everyday Democratic candidate, to the extent those still even exist.

Democratic establishment leaders like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries keep insisting that the Democrats just have a big tent and that this is a good thing.

But what does that really mean? If the Democrats' "big tent" includes proposals such as abolishing the Senate and Supreme Court, seizing private property and, as one of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top aides put it, "impoverishing the White middle class," then voters have a right to believe that electing Democrats might bring those things about.

JONATHAN TURLEY: NOTHING SAYS 'BIG TENT' LIKE A GOOD COMMUNIST POGROM In the final 10 days of the Michigan race, Piker and the DSA were basically El-Sayed’s running mates.

At first, the party thought it had found electoral gold, as the fabulist polls posited a supercharged socialist blowout.

They were ready to send Piker everywhere and to plaster his face all over America.

When that lead turned out to be fool's gold, Democrats realized they had made a huge mistake, and that Piker and his lunatic ravings about Israel and murdering United States senators had done far more harm than good.

Even having realized that, however, the party is stuck with Piker and the DSA now.