Francesca Hong, a socialist poised to become the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, is walking back her denunciation of Thanksgiving.
“My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving,” Ms. Hong told Politico. “I don’t want to cancel it. I actually love it.”
Ms. Hong, a state representative, recently went viral for justifying a 2020 post, in which she wrote, “Cancel thanksgiving,” calling the holiday a celebration of colonialism and “the original superspreader event that killed Indegenous folx and women.”
Ms. Hong is a self-identified democratic socialist whose platform calls for publicly owned grocery stores, a halt to data center construction and the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She told CNN when asked about the post, “Bringing folks around a table to share conversation and build community is always a good thing, but Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities.”
Americans trace Thanksgiving’s origins to a 1621 feast shared by the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts and the Wampanoag Indians.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation recognizing the holiday to show gratitude for “the gracious gifts of the Most High God” amid the bloody Civil War.
Ms. Hong noted that “views can evolve” but did not disavow her past statement.
Polls have consistently shown Ms. Hong leading by double digits in the race for the Democratic nomination. The primary’s Election Day is Tuesday.
Incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is not seeking reelection.
Ms. Hong has denounced more than Thanksgiving.
“I’m going to be real: I’m kind of a curmudgeon when it comes to holidays in general,” she told Politico.
Shortly before Independence Day in 2019, she posted on social media, “I do not enjoy fireworks.”
In October 2025, she called Halloween “not my thing.”
She also slapped Valentine’s Day, writing in 2022, “I miss working in a restaurant every day … except on VDay. As if we weren’t invisible enough to those who don’t recognize the emotional & physical labor of service work, the worst of humanity comes out from folks ’celebrating’ on another day capitalism tells you how to show love.”
Rep. Tom Tiffany, a GOP gubernatorial candidate endorsed by President Trump, ripped Ms. Hong’s anti-Thanksgiving remarks as at odds with Wisconsin’s values.
“This is a big part of our culture in Wisconsin: family, football, turkey,” Mr. Tiffany told Fox News of the holiday, arguing that socialists “just want to destroy our culture.”
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