Senator Tammy Baldwin draws Republican challenger in Wisconsin
Eric Hovde, a Wisconsin businessman, announced his campaign Tuesday for the Senate seat of Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, giving Republicans a prominent candidate in the state after two sitting members of Congress declined to run.
“Do you feel like America is slipping away?” said Mr Hovde in his announcement video. “Our country faces enormous challenges. Our economy, our health care, crime and open borders – everything is going in the wrong direction. All Washington does is divide us and talk about who is to blame, and nothing happens.”
“I believe we must come together and find common sense solutions to fix America,” he added in the video, which did not mention Ms. Baldwin, other Democrats or Republicans.
Mr. Hovde, the multimillionaire founder of H Bancorp LLC and the CEO of a real estate development company, is the highest-profile candidate so far to enter the Republican race. He ran for Senate once before, losing the Republican primary in 2012, and considered running for Senate in 2018 and governor in 2022, but decided against it.
Wisconsin is in the Republican second tier this year as the party tries to gain control of the Senate. It is a closely divided state where Donald J. Trump won in 2016, but Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in 2020 – and where a Democratic governor won re-election in 2022 – and it poses a bigger challenge to Republicans than the red states of the United States. Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. But it will probably be competitive.
Ms. Baldwin quickly used news of Mr. Hovde's arrival to solicit donations for the campaign. post on social media that this “will be my most competitive and expensive race yet.” A spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said in a statement that Mr. Hovde would “put ultra-rich people like him above Wisconsin's middle class” and vote to ban abortion, cut Social Security benefits and repeal Affordable Care Act.
Both responses also touch on a point that Democrats are likely to hammer home in the coming months: Mr. Hovde owns real estate and has lived on and off in California.
Representatives Mike Gallagher and Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, Republicans seen as potential recruits, said last year they would not challenge Ms. Baldwin.