# CLUSTER 02 — KITCHENS: 2009–2020 Hub: [[Hong_hub]] Previous: [[Hong_Cluster_01_Formation_1988-2009]] Next: [[Hong_Cluster_03_Freshman_2021-2022]] --- ## CLUSTER OVERVIEW The Kitchens cluster covers the eleven years from Hong's 2009 entry into the dish pit to her November 2020 election to the Wisconsin Assembly. Its narrative center is **Morris Ramen** — the King Street restaurant she opens in December 2016 with her then-husband Matt Morris and mentor Shinji Muramoto — and its institutional spine is the sequence of **movement organizations she co-founds** on top of the restaurant platform: the Culinary Ladies Collective (2017), Femmestival (2020), and Cook It Forward Madison (2020). Through this period the structural relationship she builds is with the **Madison food-civic-movement network** — chef-owners, mutual-aid organizers, alt-weekly food press — not with the Democratic Party's law-school-and-staffer credentialing pipeline that produces almost every other Madison officeholder of her generation. The cluster is Hong's **proving ground**, the exact structural counterpart of Demuth's ROCORI years [[Demuth_Cluster_02_ROCORI_2000-2018]]: it demonstrates that a non-credentialed restaurant worker can build enough organic name recognition and network vouching to beat the machine's own bench in an open-seat contest. When COVID-19 destroys the restaurant economy in March 2020, the proving ground produces an asset the movement infrastructure wants to invest in — and within eight weeks a meat purveyor's recruitment question, a Mother's Day launch, and a Working Families Party endorsement convert the chef into a candidate. In selection-mechanism terms the two dossiers' second clusters end identically: a woman with no degree, vouched for by a local gatekeeper network, wins her first partisan race and becomes a **statewide-visible transformation-narrative asset** on day one — Demuth as the only Black Republican in the Minnesota House, Hong as the first Asian American ever seated in the Wisconsin Legislature. --- ## 5-A ENTRIES ### 2009–March 2012 — Dish Pit to Executive Chef at 23: The Wage-Work Résumé **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (age 20–23). *External:* the downtown Madison restaurant tier — **La Brioche, Osteria Papavero, Restaurant Magnus, Graze, Brasserie V** all appear on her documented résumé; **43 North** (108 King St., opened October 2010), owned by chef Justin Carlisle with partners from the Muramoto restaurant group; **Shinji Muramoto**, the restaurateur who becomes her career-long mentor and eventual business partner. **Antecedents and Acts — What** From 2009 Hong works full time in Madison kitchens, "starting as a dishwasher" and rising through line cook and sous chef; her official biography records that she at one point held **four part-time jobs simultaneously**. She joins 43 North's kitchen at its October 2010 opening and in **mid-March 2012, at age 23, is promoted to executive chef** — one of only a few female executive chefs in Madison and, per the contemporaneous Cap Times report, the only woman then running an upscale downtown kitchen. Her quotes from that 2012 piece: **"I worshipped the cooks that were above me"**; **"You do have to fight to prove yourself a little bit more. Even though I hate looking at it that way."** **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* A cooking career pursued on its own terms. *Institutional:* This is the **wage-formation decade** that substitutes, in Hong's profile, for the wealth-formation decade in Demuth's [[Demuth_Cluster_01_Formation_1967-1999]]. Demuth's pre-political capital is a commercial-property cash flow that buys time for unpaid civic life; Hong's pre-political capital is the **authenticity ledger** — dish pit, four jobs, $2.33 tipped-wage kitchens — that later converts into the highest-value currency of post-2016 Democratic politics: verified working-class biography. Each candidate accumulates exactly the capital her party's selection mechanism prices highest. *Strategic:* The 2012 promotion also supplies the first press artifact — the Cap Times "A room of her own" feature — establishing the gender-in-kitchens frame (her employer Muramoto, quoted: "Francesca, she really cares about the details of food. That's a women thing, compared to men") that Hong will spend the next decade organizing against and fundraising on. **Area or Arena — Where** Downtown Madison restaurant corridor; 43 North, 108 King Street. **Primary Source Links** - [Cap Times (Christians, May 3, 2012) — A room of her own: Where are the female executive chefs?](https://captimes.com/entertainment/dining/restaurants/a-room-of-her-own-where-are-the-female-executive-chefs/article_052dac7d-7baf-5723-8272-cbf82daacbef.html) - [WI Legislature — Hong official bio (dish pit; four part-time jobs)](https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/76/hong/about/) - [BRAVA Magazine (Wagener, Dec 17, 2020) — Head of the Table (restaurant résumé)](https://bravamagazine.com/head-of-the-table-francesca-hong/) - [Isthmus (Falkenstein, Sept 7, 2010) — 43 North to take over King Street space](https://isthmus.com/food-drink/cafe-continental-closing-43-north-to-take-over-king-street-space/) --- ### 2014–2016 — Burnout, Exit, Return; the Birth of George **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong; fiancé-then-husband **Matt Morris** (chef at Restaurant Muramoto); son **George**, born ~mid-2016. *External:* **Urban Land Interests** (the Madison property-management firm where she works during her out-of-industry interval); **Merchant** (the downtown restaurant where she returns as a line cook in 2015); **Restaurant Muramoto**, where she cooks under Shinji Muramoto beside Morris. **Antecedents and Acts — What** In 2014 Hong burns out and leaves kitchens for a property-management job at Urban Land Interests. In 2015 she returns as a line cook at Merchant, then cooks at Restaurant Muramoto. In roughly May–June 2016 her son George is born — her account of her final Muramoto shift: **"I was sweeping under the oven, scrubbing down the kitchen, and my kid was born five hours later."** She and Morris (engaged by May 2012, married by October 2016 press references) become the parents whose child is, in her words, one of her "twins" — the other being the restaurant they are about to open. **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* Career recalibration and family formation. *Institutional:* The burnout-exit-return arc converts a liability (leaving the industry) into the deepest layer of the moral-standing axis: she has lived the industry's failure modes — the hours, the wages, the mental-health toll — from inside, twice. Motherhood then completes the three-legged profile the selection mechanism will harvest from 2020 forward: **worker, mother, survivor**. The five-hours-before-birth line is the Hong equivalent of Demuth's "I was literally: mom" — the pure experiential mother-moment that later does rhetorical work in every profile. *Strategic:* The Urban Land Interests interval — a property-management job inside Madison's downtown real-estate apparatus — is the single least-branded fact of her biography, and its absence from campaign materials is itself diagnostic: the authenticity ledger admits kitchens and omits landlords. **Area or Arena — Where** Madison: Urban Land Interests; Merchant; Restaurant Muramoto. **Primary Source Links** - [Meal Magazine (Marsh, 2023) — Soup Lefty (burnout, ULI, Merchant, the birth)](https://www.meal-magazine.com/meal-digital/hong) - [Madison Magazine (Brozyna, April 20, 2017) — Hong on ramen, thriving in the kitchen ("twins")](https://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/dining-and-drink/francesca-hong-on-ramen-thriving-in-the-kitchen/article_b5303394-213e-5207-96c9-e4c2144eafd7.html) - [Cap Times (May 3, 2012) — engagement to Matt Morris documented](https://captimes.com/entertainment/dining/restaurants/a-room-of-her-own-where-are-the-female-executive-chefs/article_052dac7d-7baf-5723-8272-cbf82daacbef.html) --- ### Mid-December 2016 — Morris Ramen Opens at 106 King Street **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (chef/co-owner). *External:* co-owners **Matt Morris** (the restaurant bears his name; his Japan-trained pork-broth recipe anchors the menu) and **Shinji Muramoto** (mentor-partner; the space is one door from the old 43 North address); the King Street restaurant corridor a block from the Capitol; Wisconsin farm suppliers. **Antecedents and Acts — What** Morris Ramen opens in mid-December 2016 in the former Red Sushi space at 106 King Street. It is an immediate critical hit — winner of the Isthmus "Mad Faves" 2017 readers' poll for **Favorite New Restaurant**. Hong runs the kitchen as co-chef/co-owner, pumping breast milk in the basement in the early months, and builds the shop's documented internal-policy reputation: equitable wage policies and an integrated front/back-of-house staffing model, later described as paying $15 an hour against Wisconsin's $2.33 tipped minimum. **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* An owner-operated ramen shop. *Institutional:* Morris Ramen is Hong's **ROCORI board** — the small institution, one block from the Capitol, through which she becomes a known civic quantity for the decade's remainder. It is also the platform that converts her from employee to **small-business owner**, the identity token that later appears verbatim in her campaign self-descriptions ("chef, service worker, mom, and former small business owner") and that gives the eventual cross-party comparison its sharpest bio-echo: both 2026 frontrunners co-owned a business with their husbands, and both ran for office on the owner-operator identity rather than the balance sheet. *Strategic:* The restaurant's location — 106 King Street, in the Capitol's sightline — collapses the distance between her civic stage and her eventual political one. Her 2020 residency defense will be, in her own words: "I am in this district every day working to make sure that Morris Ramen is more than just a restaurant." **Area or Arena — Where** Morris Ramen, 106 King Street, Madison — one block from the Wisconsin State Capitol. **Primary Source Links** - [Isthmus (Geyer, Jan 26, 2017) — The hottest bowl in town (opened mid-December 2016; named for Morris)](https://isthmus.com/food-drink/reviews/morris-ramen-brings-noodles-to-the-next-level/) - [Cap Times (Christians, Feb 13, 2024) — Morris Ramen to close (opening/ownership history)](https://captimes.com/food-drink/morris-ramen-on-king-street-to-close-feb-24/article_65638400-ca7f-11ee-aa31-631df1e1e482.html) - [Isthmus — Mad Faves 2017 (Favorite New Restaurant)](https://isthmus.com/isthmus-annual-manual/isthmus-readers-pick-their-madison-favorites-2017) - [BRAVA (Wagener, Jan 5, 2021) — The Culinary Changemaker (wage policies)](https://bravamagazine.com/w2w-francesca-hong/) - [Kyunghyang Shinmun (July 15, 2026) — $15/hour at her restaurant vs. $2.33 tipped wage](https://www.khan.co.kr/en/article/202607210635007/) --- ### Spring 2017 — Co-Founding the Culinary Ladies Collective **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (co-founder; later board president). *External:* co-founders **Tami Lax** (Harvest / The Old Fashioned) and **Laila Borokhim** (Noosh / Layla's); the ~20 women at the first meeting, growing to nearly 100 members statewide by May 2017; the Madison food press (Isthmus, Edible Madison) that institutionalizes the group's profile. **Antecedents and Acts — What** Hong co-founds the **Culinary Ladies Collective** — a support-and-mentorship network of "female chefs, cooks, food and beverage producers, growers and artisans," later described as serving women and nonbinary people in the industry. First meeting spring 2017; early actions include farmers-market fundraiser brunches and cookie drives for Planned Parenthood, including a Morris Ramen-organized Planned Parenthood fundraiser that raises $2,500 in the post-2016-election period. Her stated motive: **"There are very few of us in privileged positions in the food and beverage industry where we actually control the decisions of the restaurant."** In February 2020 the CLC's organizing capacity culminates in **Femmestival** at Garver Feed Mill — "a family-friendly culinary arts festival celebrating women, femmes and non-binary food entrepreneurs," benefiting the CLC and Centro Hispano. Her quote: **"People are feeling more empowered to be themselves, to carve out spaces for themselves."** **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* Mutual support for women in a male-dominated industry. *Institutional:* The CLC is the **organizational credential** that substitutes for the party-pipeline credential Hong does not hold. By 2020 she is not "a chef who decided to run"; she is the president of a named, press-legitimated, statewide-membership women's organization with a fundraising track record — exactly the pre-vetting artifact a recruitment network needs to justify its choice. Demuth's equivalent is eleven years of ROCORI board minutes; Hong's is three years of CLC organizing. Both are women's-civic-infrastructure credentials, built outside the party, immediately convertible inside it. *Strategic:* The post-2016-election timing (organized in the Trump-shock winter, launched spring 2017) places the CLC inside the national women's-organizing wave — the same political technology the Demuth dossier traces to the 1881 MWSA [[Demuth_Three_Legged_Stool]]. The Wisconsin lineage runs through the same 19th-century suffrage-and-temperance infrastructure; Hong's collective is its restaurant-industry expression, 136 years downstream. **Area or Arena — Where** Madison food economy; South Madison Farmers' Market; Garver Feed Mill (Femmestival, February 23, 2020). **Primary Source Links** - [Isthmus (Brogan, May 10, 2017) — Better together (CLC founding)](https://isthmus.com/food-drink/better-together/) - [Edible Madison (Thomas Bates, March 16, 2018) — Industry Women Organize in Madison](https://ediblemadison.com/stories/culinary-ladies-collective) - [Garver Feed Mill / Cap Times (Jan 2020) — Femmestival announcement](https://garverfeedmill.com/news/2020/01/new-femmestival-at-garver-celebrates-food-art-and-empowerment/) - [Meal Magazine — Planned Parenthood fundraiser; "privileged positions" quote](https://www.meal-magazine.com/meal-digital/hong) - [Hong campaign site — About (CLC framing)](https://francescahong.com/about/) --- ### March–June 2020 — COVID Closure, the Hunter Question, and Cook It Forward **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (restaurant co-owner; emerging advocate). *External:* **Jonny Hunter** (Underground Food Collective — the Madison "underground meat purveyor" who in March 2020 asks whether she would consider running for the open Assembly seat); **Joshua Berkson and Patrick Sweeney** (Merchant/Lucille managing partners, Cook It Forward co-founders); Second Harvest Food Bank and the program's restaurant roster (Morris Ramen among them); Governor Tony Evers' emergency orders; the collapsing national restaurant economy; **José Andrés' World Central Kitchen**, the program's stated inspiration. **Antecedents and Acts — What** Morris Ramen closes its dining room on March 16–17, 2020. Hong, initially declining Hunter's recruitment question, becomes increasingly vocal on Twitter about worker protections — eviction moratoria, rent assistance, emergency unemployment benefits — and pens a statement on behalf of Wisconsin chefs and restaurant owners demanding action, inspired by a group of independent Chicago restaurateurs. When policymakers do not act: "At first she was disappointed by the inaction of decision-makers. Then she decided it was unacceptable." With Berkson and Sweeney she launches **Cook It Forward Madison** — paying under-capacity restaurant kitchens $10 per meal to cook for food banks and community centers, delivering an average of 500 meals a week, passing $100,000 in individual donations in roughly half a year, with an initial 50,000-meal goal. The restaurant reopens for takeout in spring 2020 after a PPP loan; all 21 staff are offered their jobs back and fourteen return. **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* Feed people; keep kitchens alive; force policymakers to see the industry's collapse. *Institutional:* This is Hong's **Main Street Relief Act moment** — the precise Wisconsin twin of the November 2020 breakout the Demuth dossier documents in [[Demuth_Cluster_03_Freshman_2019-2022]]. In the same pandemic year, in adjacent states, both future 2026 frontrunners are surfaced to their statewide publics through **COVID small-business relief for the food-adjacent economy** — Demuth as the House GOP face of the Main Street Relief Act, Hong as the chef-founder of a mutual-aid meals program. Neither breakout requires attacking any load-bearing architecture; both are "protect small business and feed families" frames that are institutionally invisible and politically potent. The mechanism selects the same breakout issue on both sides of the state line and both sides of the aisle. *Strategic:* Cook It Forward also completes Hong's recruitment file: by May the movement network can point to an organization, a meals count, a press narrative, and a Twitter following. The Hunter question of March is answerable by May. **Area or Arena — Where** Morris Ramen; Cook It Forward's partner kitchens across Dane County; Madison food-relief infrastructure. **Primary Source Links** - [Cap Times (Shetler, June 6, 2020) — Restaurants pledge to 'Cook It Forward'](https://captimes.com/entertainment/dining/restaurants-still-under-capacity-pledge-to-cook-it-forward/article_5a8db282-a287-5306-abfe-e99ef7b109c6.html) - [Meal Magazine — the Hunter recruitment account](https://www.meal-magazine.com/meal-digital/hong) - [Madison Magazine (Feb 18, 2021) — mise en place (Chicago-restaurateurs statement; CIF scale)](https://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/dining-and-drink/francesca-hong-s-mise-en-place/article_b634141a-d101-5866-b536-aadadadcf758.html) - [Madison Magazine (Twietmeyer, May 12, 2020) — 'Voices like mine need to be heard'](https://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/city-life/voices-like-mine-need-to-be-heard-says-francesca-hong-state-assembly-hopeful/article_7447cd22-8c34-54e1-a631-5c2425213ab8.html) --- ### May 10–11, 2020 — Mother's Day Campaign Launch for the Open 76th **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (candidate). *External:* retiring Rep. **Chris Taylor** (D-Madison; announced March 26, 2020 she would not seek re-election; appointed by Evers to the Dane County Circuit Court on June 11, 2020, effective August 1); the **Working Families Party of Wisconsin**, which endorses Hong in its 2020 slate; the Madison365 / Cap Times / Madison Magazine press layer that carries the launch. **Antecedents and Acts — What** Hong announces her candidacy for the open 76th Assembly District over Mother's Day weekend, May 10–11, 2020. Her launch line: **"I'm running for office to represent those who are suffering the most from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic."** Her explanation: "going into politics wasn't the plan. But after watching the leadership fail our community, I decided voices like mine need to be heard." The WFP's endorsement text describes her as "A mother, community organizer, and service industry worker... A daughter of immigrants, Francesca would be the first Asian American in the Wisconsin Legislature." Her August op-ed sets the campaign theology: **"Never trust a chef who presents a dish and calls it their own"** — she is running "not... to BE your voice, but to be a conduit." **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* Pandemic representation for workers and small businesses. *Institutional:* The launch's **Mother's Day timing** is the cleanest single piece of evidence in the cluster that the woman-mother axis is the primary fundraising-and-suitability axis in Hong's profile, exactly as it is in Demuth's [[Demuth_Three_Legged_Stool]]. The "first Asian American" line is present from the WFP's first endorsement paragraph — the ethnicity axis is deployed **by the institution, for her, from day one**, before she has cast a single vote. *Strategic:* The open seat matters structurally: like Demuth's HD13A (opened by Jeff Howe's retirement and handoff), AD-76 opens by incumbent exit and judicial elevation, not by a challenge. Neither woman ever unseats anyone to enter her chamber. **Area or Arena — Where** AD-76 (downtown Madison / near east side); Madison political press. **Primary Source Links** - [Madison365 (May 11, 2020) — Hong announces campaign](https://madison365.com/francesca-hong-announces-campaign-run-for-wisconsins-76th-assembly-district/) - [Evers press release (June 11, 2020) — Taylor appointed to Dane County Circuit Court](https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WIGOV/bulletins/2901746) - [WisPolitics (2020) — Working Families Party endorsements (Hong AD-76)](https://www.wispolitics.com/2020/working-families-party-announces-new-endorsements-in-wi-state-races-2/) - [Cap Times (Hong op-ed, Aug 7, 2020) — Together, we will share the table](https://captimes.com/francesca-hong-together-we-will-share-the-table-and-be-heard-in-the-capitol/article_6aa96dc6-6938-589d-938e-d09cead4cc3e.html) - [Ballotpedia News (Aug 5, 2020) — Taylor leaves Legislature](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2020/08/05/taylor-leaves-wisconsin-legislature-replaces-karofsky-on-dane-county-circuit-court/) --- ### July 24, 2020 — The Residency Story: A Candidate Who Does Not Live in the District **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (candidate, resident of the neighboring 48th Assembly District). *External:* the Cap Times (Briana Reilly, who breaks the story); the Wisconsin Elections Commission (spokesman Reid Magney, who explains the 28-day rule); the six other Democratic candidates, all of whom live in the district. **Antecedents and Acts — What** Eighteen days before the primary, the Cap Times reports that Hong does not live in the 76th District. Wisconsin law requires only that a legislator reside in the district **28 days before taking the oath** — Magney: "you can live anywhere in the state at the time of the election as long as you move into the district 28 days before you get sworn in." Hong says COVID delayed a planned move and commits to relocating before November. Her defense: **"I am in this district every day working to make sure that Morris Ramen is more than just a restaurant."** **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* A technical, legal residency timeline disrupted by the pandemic. *Institutional:* The residency story is the Hong-side analogue of the Demuth write-in of 2007 — the **loophole entry**. Demuth entered elected life through the write-in line because the regular ballot line was machine-locked; Hong enters through the 28-day statute because the district line was, at filing, not where she lived. In both cases the formal rules of entry bend around a candidate the local network has already decided on, and in both cases the bend produces **no penalty**: Demuth wins her write-in; Hong wins her primary eighteen days after the story runs. The gatekeeping layer — Stearns County GOP for Demuth, the Madison movement-press ecosystem for Hong — absorbs the irregularity because the candidate is pre-cleared. *Strategic:* The episode also produces the "Morris Ramen is more than just a restaurant" line — the restaurant-as-civic-standing claim that is the whole Kitchens cluster in one sentence. **Area or Arena — Where** AD-76 / AD-48 boundary, Madison; Wisconsin Elections Commission. **Primary Source Links** - [Cap Times (Reilly, July 24, 2020) — Hong doesn't live in the 76th District, plans to move there](https://captimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/assembly-candidate-francesca-hong-doesnt-live-in-the-76th-district-plans-to-move-there/article_5e2d6e8d-4841-5606-a43b-7de6f1550f4b.html) --- ### August 11, 2020 — Primary Won With 28.1% Over the Machine's Own Bench **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (winner). *External:* the six defeated Democrats — **Tyrone Cratic Williams** (Madison police officer, 22.4%), **Marsha Rummel** (13-year Madison alder and former Common Council president, 16.5%), **Heather Driscoll** (organizer, 16.3%), **Nicki Vander Meulen** (school board member and juvenile defense attorney, 9.3%), **Ali Maresh** (mental-health communications professional, 6.5%), **Dewey Bredeson** (realtor, 0.8%); the 17,029 primary voters of AD-76. **Antecedents and Acts — What** Primary result: **Hong 4,793 votes — 28.1%**, a 983-vote margin over Cratic Williams. The defeated field contains the credentialed bench of Madison civic life — an alder with thirteen years of service, a sitting school-board member, a police officer. Hong's election-night lines: "It's time for change and folks want a change from the outside and I will fight every single day for that." **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* An outsider victory. *Institutional:* This is the entry in which the Hong record **genuinely diverges** from the Demuth "pre-cleared, then formality" template, and the dossier registers it with the same honesty the Demuth apex-claims test applied to the 2022 Daudt contest [[Demuth_hub]]: Hong won a real, seven-way, contested primary against the machine's own credentialed candidates. She is institutionally positioned AND a real political competitor — the same dual finding the Demuth dossier reached. The refinement: her 28.1% is a plurality of a fractured field, the narrowest possible mandate, in a district where the primary is the election. The movement-press layer (WFP endorsement, saturation profiles) functioned as her slate infrastructure against candidates who had only the older, weaker credentialing signals. *Strategic:* Beating a **police officer** in August 2020 — ten weeks after George Floyd's murder, in the summer of Madison's own protest wave — is the result's structural subtext. The cycle's issue environment was maximally tilted toward the mutual-aid chef and against the cop; the selection environment, not only the candidate, produced the margin. **Area or Arena — Where** AD-76 Democratic primary; Dane County. **Primary Source Links** - [Cap Times (Ferral, Aug 11, 2020) — Chef Francesca Hong tops seven-candidate field](https://captimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/chef-francesca-hong-tops-seven-candidate-field-to-claim-76th-assembly-win/article_ee827be7-028f-59a8-bf37-ee7309390d96.html) - [Ballotpedia — Francesca Hong (2020 primary results)](https://ballotpedia.org/Francesca_Hong) - [UpNorthNews (July 22 & 24, 2020) — AD-76 candidate interviews](https://upnorthnewswi.com/2020/07/24/the-unn-candidate-interview-marsha-rummel-nicki-vander-meulen-and-tyrone-cratic-williams-of-assembly-district-76/) --- ### November 3, 2020 — Elected to the Assembly (88.02%); the First Asian American in the Wisconsin Legislature **Architects and Actors — Who** *Hong Internal:* Hong (winner). *External:* **Patrick Hull** (R, a UW-Madison undergraduate, 11.77%); the Wisconsin Elections Commission (certification December 1, 2020); **Samba Baldeh**, elected the same night in AD-48 as the first Muslim in the Legislature; the Wisconsin press layer that fixes the "first" framing. **Antecedents and Acts — What** General election result: **Hong (D) 35,731 — 88.02%; Hull (R) 4,779 — 11.77%.** One of the most lopsided Assembly results of the cycle. Hong becomes, on seating, **the first Asian American ever to serve in the Wisconsin Legislature — either chamber, in state history.** Election-night quotes: **"We are meeting this moment by showing up and showing out in record numbers"** and — the line that will define her next six years — **"The time for incrementalism is over. I believe in change, but more importantly, I believe in transformation."** **Agendas or Appropriations — Why** *Stated:* A safe-seat general election. *Institutional:* From this night forward Hong is a **one-of-one protected-class asset** in the Wisconsin Legislature — the precise structural mirror of Demuth's status as the only Black Republican in the Minnesota House from January 2019. Neither caucus has a substitute face; both institutions therefore absorb, protect, and deploy their singular asset. And the word Hong chooses on election night — **"transformation"** — is the literal name of the candidate-type the companion dossier spent six files documenting: the transformation-narrative candidate, self-announced. *Strategic:* The 88% result also fixes the district's structural meaning: AD-76 will never test her. Her subsequent margins (98.4% unopposed in 2022, 98.9% unopposed in 2024) remove every electoral constraint, freeing her — as HD13A's growing margins freed Demuth — to play for statewide and institutional stakes rather than district ones. **Area or Arena — Where** AD-76; Wisconsin Elections Commission certified results. **Primary Source Links** - [Madison365 (Dahmer, Nov 3, 2020) — Hong wins 76th; first Asian American in the Legislature](https://madison365.com/francesca-hong-wins-76th-assembly-district-will-become-first-asian-american-to-serve-in-the-legislature/) - [Ballotpedia — Francesca Hong (2020 general results)](https://ballotpedia.org/Francesca_Hong) - [Wikipedia — 2020 Wisconsin State Assembly election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Wisconsin_State_Assembly_election) - [Wisconsin State Journal (Meyerhofer, Nov 5, 2020) — Madison voters elect 1st Asian-American and 1st Muslim to state Legislature](https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_ac627336-6622-56a0-a97e-393be7d9e2c6.html) - [WUWM Lake Effect (Jan 14, 2021) — 'Motivated, Grateful And Terrified'](https://www.wuwm.com/podcast/lake-effect-segments/2021-01-14/motivated-grateful-and-terrified-wisconsins-first-asian-american-state-legislator) --- ## CLUSTER PERSONNEL ADDITIONS (Through 2020) | Name | Role(s) | Entered Record | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | Matt Morris | Husband (engaged 2012, married by 2016; later divorced); co-owner/namesake of Morris Ramen | 2012 | The co-owned-business-with-husband structure both dossier subjects share | | Shinji Muramoto | Mentor-restaurateur; 43 North employer; Morris Ramen co-owner | 2010 | The career-long gatekeeper of her culinary rise | | George | Son, born ~mid-2016 | 2016 | The "1 child" of every official biography; the single-mom axis of the 2025 campaign | | Tami Lax / Laila Borokhim | Culinary Ladies Collective co-founders | 2017 | The women's-civic-infrastructure layer | | Jonny Hunter | Underground Food Collective; asked the March 2020 recruitment question | 2020 | Hong's Jeff Howe — the network gatekeeper who opens the door | | Joshua Berkson / Patrick Sweeney | Cook It Forward co-founders (Merchant/Lucille) | 2020 | The mutual-aid-platform partners | | Chris Taylor | Retiring AD-76 incumbent; elevated to Dane County bench | 2020 | The exit that opens the seat | | Tyrone Cratic Williams, Marsha Rummel, Heather Driscoll, Nicki Vander Meulen, Ali Maresh, Dewey Bredeson | Defeated 2020 primary field | 2020 | The credentialed bench the movement candidate beat | | Patrick Hull | R nominee, 2020 general | 2020 | Lost 11.77% to 88.02% | | Samba Baldeh | AD-48; first Muslim in the Legislature, elected same night | 2020 | The companion "first" of the 2020 Madison cycle | --- ## CLUSTER METRICS (Through 2020) - **Morris Ramen tenure:** co-owner/co-chef, December 2016–February 2024 (closure documented in Cluster 04) - **Movement organizations co-founded:** 3 (CLC 2017; Femmestival 2020; Cook It Forward 2020) - **2020 primary margin:** +5.7 points (28.1% plurality, 7-way field) - **2020 general margin:** +76.25 points - **Campaign fundraising (2020 cycle, Ballotpedia):** $65,487 - **Public statements on the identity-selection machine as a system:** zero documented through 2020 (the count turns nonzero in Cluster 03) --- ## OPEN RESEARCH QUESTIONS (Cluster 02) 1. **Morris Ramen's business records** — PPP loan amounts, ownership percentages, lease terms at 106 King Street; the co-owned-with-husband structure is documented but not quantified. 2. **The complete 2020 endorsement list** — the WFP endorsement is documented; hong4assembly.com's full endorsement page was never archived and union/politician endorsements beyond WFP are unconfirmed. 3. **The Hunter recruitment conversation** — the single account is Hong's own 2023 telling to Meal Magazine; Hunter's side is undocumented. 4. **Where exactly she moved inside AD-76** in fall 2020 — the 28-day compliance is undocumented in public sources. 5. **Cook It Forward's full financials** — the $100,000 individual-donation milestone and $500,000 corporate goal are reported; final totals and disbursements are not. 6. **The Urban Land Interests interval** — dates, role, and why it is absent from all campaign biography. 7. **CLC founding-year discrepancy** — Wikipedia and Madison365 say 2016; Isthmus's contemporaneous reporting says first meeting spring 2017; the campaign site says 2017. 8. **The marriage and divorce dates** — engaged by May 2012, "wife" by October 2016 press usage, "separated amicably" per 2023 profile, "divorced" per Wikipedia; no dates on any public record. --- ## SOURCES (Cluster 02) - [Cap Times (Christians, May 3, 2012) — A room of her own](https://captimes.com/entertainment/dining/restaurants/a-room-of-her-own-where-are-the-female-executive-chefs/article_052dac7d-7baf-5723-8272-cbf82daacbef.html) - [Isthmus (Geyer, Jan 26, 2017) — Morris Ramen review](https://isthmus.com/food-drink/reviews/morris-ramen-brings-noodles-to-the-next-level/) - [Isthmus (Brogan, May 10, 2017) — Better together (CLC)](https://isthmus.com/food-drink/better-together/) - [Edible Madison (March 16, 2018) — Industry Women Organize](https://ediblemadison.com/stories/culinary-ladies-collective) - [Cap Times (Shetler, June 6, 2020) — Cook It Forward](https://captimes.com/entertainment/dining/restaurants-still-under-capacity-pledge-to-cook-it-forward/article_5a8db282-a287-5306-abfe-e99ecd5f4009.html) - [Madison365 (May 11, 2020) — campaign announcement](https://madison365.com/francesca-hong-announces-campaign-run-for-wisconsins-76th-assembly-district/) - [Cap Times (Reilly, July 24, 2020) — residency story](https://captimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/assembly-candidate-francesca-hong-doesnt-live-in-the-76th-district-plans-to-move-there/article_5e2d6e8d-4841-5606-a43b-7de6f1550f4b.html) - [Cap Times (Ferral, Aug 11, 2020) — primary night](https://captimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/chef-francesca-hong-tops-seven-candidate-field-to-claim-76th-assembly-win/article_ee827be7-028f-59a8-bf37-ee7309390d96.html) - [Madison365 (Dahmer, Nov 3, 2020) — election night](https://madison365.com/francesca-hong-wins-76th-assembly-district-will-become-first-asian-american-to-serve-in-the-legislature/) - [Ballotpedia — Francesca Hong](https://ballotpedia.org/Francesca_Hong) - [Meal Magazine (Marsh, 2023) — Soup Lefty](https://www.meal-magazine.com/meal-digital/hong) - [Madison Magazine (Feb 18, 2021) — mise en place](https://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/dining-and-drink/francesca-hong-s-mise-en-place/article_b634141a-d101-5866-b536-aadadadcf758.html) - [BRAVA (Dec 17, 2020 / Jan 5, 2021) — Head of the Table / Culinary Changemaker](https://bravamagazine.com/head-of-the-table-francesca-hong/) - [WisPolitics (2020) — WFP endorsement slate](https://www.wispolitics.com/2020/working-families-party-announces-new-endorsements-in-wi-state-races-2/) #Actors_and_Architects