A huge lead for Hong, and the president’s thumbs-up for Lindell. Ballgame.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to those would-be coronations: Voters showed up and had different ideas. Hong and Lindell went 0-for-2. Pragmatism won the day.

Hong’s nomination was seen as a fait accompli, even as her long history of wacky and destructive ideas was broadcast far and wide across social media.

The final batch of public opinion surveys pegged her lead over the rest of the shambolic field at anywhere between 18 and 29 percentage points. The respected Marquette University poll, often cited as Wisconsin’s “gold standard,” projected a 22-point victory for Hong.

She lost.

In fairness, this survey measured her support at 38%, which was well ahead of anyone else. Her actual vote share turned out to be just north of 39%, so that’s hardly a catastrophic polling miss.

What was shocking, however, was the degree to which anti-Hong Democratic voters consolidated behind a single alternative candidate.

That candidate was Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who had previously ended his bid for governor before reentering the race in its closing weeks. He stormed back to win by a fraction of a percentage point, despite garnering just 7% support in the late July Marquette poll.

Badger State Republicans were gearing up to fight a wild-eyed leftist whose trail of social media posts and sound bites seriously threatened to render her unelectable statewide, even in a blue-tinted cycle.

Her extremist posture on virtually everything, from law enforcement to racial issues to advertising her contempt for a number of beloved American holidays, amounted to a GOP ad-maker’s dream.

Sensing this, non-socialist Democrats flocked to Crowley, averting a likely disaster.

Crowley’s coalition was led by black Democrats. Without the victor racking up huge margins within that cohort, Hong would be the nominee heading into the fall, fueled by the Democratic Socialists of America base, Hasan Pikerites, and radicalized white progressives.

It’s worth noting that black Democrats also did their best to save their party from the risky choice of Abdul el Sayed in Michigan’s recent Senate primary, coming up just short of giving the more mainstream candidate the votes she needed to pull off an unexpected triumph, very much in defiance of polling-based expectations.

If November produces a bona fide blue wave, as appears entirely plausible to likely, figures such as el Sayed could be swept into office anyway, benefiting from the (D) next to their names on the ballot.

But flawed weirdos and extremists have cost their parties valuable races in previous landslide years. Republicans, for instance, famously left multiple Senate seats on the table in 2010 due to candidate-quality problems, even as they enjoyed a 63-seat crimson avalanche in the House that same cycle.

Left-wing, highly educated white voters are trying to test the limits of the sorts of nuts they might get away with putting on the fall ballot, while more centrist black and working-class voters are attempting to pull things in a wiser and more stable direction.

Results are mixed thus far, but the “establishment” non-DSA faction has scored a significant win in Wisconsin, significantly increasing Democrats’ odds of retaining the governorship.

In neighboring Minnesota, across the partisan aisle, pragmatism also had a good night.

Rank-and-file Gopher State GOP voters ignored Trump’s embrace of Mike Lindell, perhaps best known in the political realm for pursuing virtually every exotic conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election.

One can imagine that many downballot Republicans were not eager to constantly contend with a six-year-old election-truther narrative on the trail, so many of them undoubtedly breathed a collective sigh of relief when voters spurned the president’s pick in favor of Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth.

She is paired at the top of the ticket with longtime sportscaster and Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, who enjoys relatively high name recognition for a political newcomer.

Demuth and Tafoya are mainstream conservatives who at least give the party a fighting chance up and down the ballot.

It’s shaping up to be a challenging year for Republicans across the board, and Minnesota remains a blue state.

The Democrats won the major statewide races in the red-wave year of 2014, then swept all five constitutional offices in the most recent midterm cycle, in a GOP-favorable climate.

Despite a few close calls, Democrats have carried the state in every presidential election since 1972.

Terrible governance and mismanagement, including a major fraud scandal, should theoretically give Republicans an opening to buck the trend. Tafoya’s opponent, in particular, is quite far left and presided over that scandal as Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) lieutenant.

But the state’s opposition party should be considered clear underdogs.

POST WOKE AMERICA? THINK AGAIN

If the GOP gets clobbered nationally, Minnesota will, of course, be ugly. But the two women leading the charge for Minnesota Republicans put their campaigns and colleagues in a far better position than the pillow fever dreamer would have.

On to November.