Incumbents typically enjoy a significant election advantage.
But in America’s Dairyland, Republican Eric Hovde is mounting a stronger-than-expected challenge to two-term Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) against the backdrop of a competitive presidential contest.
The Cook Political Report moved its classification of this cycle’s Wisconsin Senate race to a “Toss-Up” from “Lean Democrat” earlier this month.
In August, Hovde told The Epoch Times: “This is ground zero for politics and the coming election cycle.
“I think Wisconsin is the state.”
Other contests rated as toss-ups by Cook include Michigan’s open congressional race, in which Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) faces former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican.
Another toss-up pits incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) against businessman Bernie Moreno.
The Cook shakeup came amid improving poll results for Hovde, who, like former President Donald Trump, is an independently wealthy real estate developer.
FiveThirtyEight’s polling average shows Baldwin 4.4 points ahead of Hovde, down from 6.5 points at the start of August.
Trump has closed his gap with Vice President Kamala Harris according to that same polling average. She leads him by 0.7 points, down from as many as 3.8 percentage points in August.
Baldwin, a lawyer who has served in the Senate since 2013, has a larger war chest than Hovde.
That’s true of advertising, too. AdImpact, which monitors how much money goes to political ads, records higher past spending ($44.9 million to $34.6 million) and future spending ($17.7 million to $15.7 million) by Democrats than Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate race.
Hovde has given significant sums to his own campaign, including an $8 million loan in August.
Baldwin first won office in 2012, when she defeated former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, 1.54 million votes to 1.38 million votes. She beat Leah Vukmir in 2018’s midterm with 1.47 million votes to 1.18 million votes, giving her a roughly 11-point victory.
Wisconsin’s junior senator, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), scored a much narrower reelection win during the 2022 midterm, the cycle when an anticipated “red wave” amounted to little more than a trickle. He beat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes by just 1 point.
Since 2019, Democrats have dominated statewide races in Wisconsin, holding the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. An exception is the treasurer position, occupied by Republican John Leiber, who was elected in 2022.
Over the same period, the Republicans have grown their share of the state’s congressional delegation, with five U.S. House seats to the Democrats’ two.
Republicans have also built a supermajority in the state Senate, with 22 out of 33 seats, and have expanded their state House majority to 64 seats to the Democrats’ 34.
