Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Francesca Hong refused to say whether she still wants to cancel Thanksgiving, pivoting instead to her résumé as a chef and a vague assurance that "views can evolve."
CNN host Kaitlan Collins put the question to Hong directly during a Monday appearance on "The Source": "Do you still believe that Thanksgiving should be canceled?" Hong, a state assemblywoman from Madison running to lead Wisconsin, answered with everything except a yes or a no.
The exchange centered on a 2020 social media post that has resurfaced as Hong campaigns for the governor's mansion. In that post, Just The News reported, Hong wrote plainly:
"Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx and women, so be it."
That is not an ambiguous statement. It calls the holiday a celebration of colonialism, labels the first Thanksgiving a "superspreader event," and demands the whole tradition be scrapped. When Collins gave Hong a chance to walk it back on national television, Hong walked around it instead.
Rather than retract the post or reaffirm it, Hong offered a meandering personal story. As Breitbart News reported, she told Collins:
"I'm a chef, and one of the first meals that I made that was for the community, when I was 16, was a Thanksgiving meal. I always think my hospitality background in owning a restaurant for seven, eight years, that, bringing folks around the 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. And so, I think there, I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve. And the position that I'm running for right now, and I think my background as a chef will actually help me become a better governor that's able to bring more people to the table."
Count the pivots. She started with her cooking credentials. She mentioned her restaurant. She acknowledged Thanksgiving is "incredibly painful for many." She said views can evolve, without specifying which views, or how hers have changed. And she closed by arguing that being a chef qualifies her to govern a state of nearly six million people.
What she did not do is answer the question.
Collins asked a binary question: do you still believe Thanksgiving should be canceled? Hong could have said yes. She could have said no. She could have said she regrets the post. Instead she produced a word salad dressed with hospitality metaphors. Voters in Wisconsin, a state where Thanksgiving means family, football, and a kitchen full of food, are left to guess where their would-be governor actually stands on a national holiday.
Hong is not a fringe candidate. Fox News reported that the 37-year-old state assemblywoman is the leading candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, with the primary set for August 11. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and has drawn endorsements from national progressives including Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Ro Khanna.
Her rise in the race accelerated after former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes withdrew from the contest amid misconduct allegations, clearing the lane for Hong to consolidate progressive support.
The Thanksgiving post is not the only position drawing scrutiny. Hong has previously called for abolishing ICE and defunding police, positions that play well in her deep-blue Madison district but face a far tougher audience in a statewide general election. Her current campaign messaging focuses on affordability, education, and health care, a shift that suggests her team knows the old rhetoric is a liability.
Republicans have seized on her record to frame her as too radical for Wisconsin. And Hong's own CNN performance handed them fresh material. When a candidate cannot manage a clean answer on whether she supports a holiday that roughly 90 percent of Americans celebrate, the "too radical" label starts to stick on its own.
Hong's dodge fits a familiar pattern in Democratic politics. Candidates run hard left in primaries, post incendiary takes on social media, and then act baffled when those posts resurface in front of a broader audience. The playbook is always the same: don't retract, don't defend, just talk about something else and hope the interviewer moves on.
The tactic works only if no one is paying attention. In a governor's race, people pay attention. The Washington Examiner noted that Hong's campaign has officially stated she does not want to cancel Thanksgiving, a clarification the candidate herself could not bring herself to deliver on camera.
That gap between the campaign's cleanup and the candidate's own evasion tells voters something. If Hong genuinely changed her mind, she could say so. If she still believes Thanksgiving should be canceled, she could defend the position. The refusal to do either suggests the real concern is not principle, it is polling.
This is part of a growing trend of DSA-backed candidates moving from safe progressive districts into statewide races where their records face genuine scrutiny. The transition is rarely smooth, because the positions that earn applause in activist circles, abolish ICE, defund police, cancel Thanksgiving, sound very different in a swing state.
Wisconsin is one of the most closely contested states in the country. Democrats need a candidate who can hold moderate voters in the Milwaukee suburbs and rural counties along the Fox River Valley. A candidate who cannot say "I like Thanksgiving" on national television faces an obvious credibility problem with those voters.
The original post deserves a second look, because Hong's CNN answer tried to soften it beyond recognition. She did not merely express sympathy for Indigenous communities in 2020. She called for canceling the holiday entirely. She dated the demand to 1621, the year of the Plymouth harvest feast. She described Thanksgiving as colonialism. And she used the language of the early pandemic to call it "the original superspreader event."
That framing treated a national tradition as a moral offense. It was not a nuanced reflection on history. It was a demand: cancel it.
On CNN, Hong repackaged that demand as a gentle observation that "there are multiple views." But she wrote the post. The words are hers. And when given the chance to disown them, she chose evasion over honesty. The backlash over the deleted post has only grown as the primary approaches.
Progressive candidates across the country have struggled with exactly this dynamic, old social media posts colliding with new political ambitions. The ones who survive the collision are the ones willing to be straight with voters. Hong chose a different path.
Wisconsin voters deserve a governor who can answer a simple question. If "views can evolve," Hong should tell them what her views evolved into, not hide behind a cutting board.
