Trump Spotlights Wisconsin Republican Candidate in Key Senate Race

US Republican Senate hopeful Eric Hovde (R) speaks at a campaign event for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Racine, Wis., on June 18, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

RACINE, Wis.—During a speech in Racine, Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump invited Republican Eric Hovde on stage to talk about his bid to unseat incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).

The rally was a sign of just how important the state could be in November for both sides as the Senate majority is up for grabs.

“We win Wisconsin, and we win the whole thing,” the former president said at the event, his third in Wisconsin this year.

He joked that Mr. Hovde, a fellow real estate developer, looked straight out of “central casting.”

Although the primary isn’t until August, Mr. Hovde is widely seen as the presumptive nominee.

As of the end of March, he had raised more than $9 million, compared to more than $26.3 million in receipts for Ms. Baldwin. Ms. Baldwin also leads in a polling average from RealClearPolitics and surveys aggregated on FiveThirtyEight. Recent figures from Florida Atlantic University and other organizations show Ms. Baldwin with a five-point lead.

Still, Democrats in the Midwestern battleground state are already targeting Mr. Hovde, claiming the multimillionaire has used the term “shyster” as an anti-Semitic slur and lambasting his visit earlier this month to his beachside property in Laguna Beach, California.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans have gone after Ms. Baldwin, drawing attention to reports that Ms. Baldwin’s partner, Maria Brisbane, helps wealthy clients minimize taxes even as Ms. Baldwin publicly criticizes loopholes for wealthy filers.

Ms. Baldwin quickly hit back against former President Trump on X after his Racine appearance.

“Winning our state is his [Trump’s] path back to the White House—and flipping my seat means Republicans will reclaim the Senate majority, too. Don’t let them,” she wrote.

In Wisconsin on June 18, the former president highlighted areas in which the incumbent lawmaker disagreed with him, including on the “Remain in Mexico” border policy Ms. Baldwin and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) coauthored a 2019 letter to Trump administration officials claiming that the policy jeopardized the wellbeing of transgender asylum seekers.

“She opposed it—I did it anyway,” former President Trump told a crowd of his supporters Tuesday night.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) speaks at a hearing on the president’s fiscal year 2024 budget request for the National Guard and Reserve in Washington on June 1, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

On stage, Mr. Hovde praised President Trump for a war-free presidency, while today the world is “awash in conflict.”

He also noted that Ms. Baldwin’s votes have aligned with President Biden’s agenda 95.5 percent of the time. That’s somewhat less than the norm among Senate Democrats.

President Trump also mentioned that Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.) and Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) were in the audience. Both men’s districts made the “offensive target list” for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.