Baldwin, Hovde Set to Debate in the Crucial State of Wisconsin

WASHINGTON — Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin and her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde, will meet on Friday, Oct. 18, for their only head-to-head debate in this year’s hotly contested Senate race in Wisconsin.

The joust, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. CDT, is being presented by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation and hosted at WMTV-TV, the NBC and CW affiliate in the state capital of Madison.

The debate will be moderated by Jill Geisler, a lifelong Wisconsinite, veteran journalist and the Bill Plante Chair in Leadership and Media Integrity at Loyola University in Chicago.

Unlike the recent presidential and vice-presidential debates hosted by CNN, ABC and CBS, Baldwin and Hovde will take questions from a panel of journalists from PBS Wisconsin and major markets throughout the state.

As that happens, a second panel, called “the data team” will provide background, context and resources to voters via digital and social media platforms.

The race between Baldwin and Hovde is one of a handful of this year’s contests that is seen as critical in determining control and the size of the majority in the U.S. Senate.

Baldwin, who won her first Senate race in 2012 by besting one of the state’s most popular former governors, Republican Tommy Thompson, has been consistently ahead in most polls since Hovde emerged victorious — by a wide margin— in the Republican primary held in August.

However, the margins are smaller — one recent poll had her ahead only by a little over three percentage points — than in past years. 

She beat Thompson by almost six points in 2012, when former President Barack Obama was at the top of the ballot, and cruised to reelection by 11 points in 2018, when her opponent was then-state Sen. Leah Vukmir.

The poll numbers have led to a spirited race to November, with Baldwin emphasizing her bipartisanship in television spots and campaign stops in the state’s most rural areas where so-called “Trump-Tammy” voters are considered part of her base.

That constituency of farmers and rural working class voters gained that sobriquet during the 2018 election, when Baldwin won 17 counties that Trump had prevailed in two years earlier.

In a bid to hold that coalition together, early TV ads in this year’s race noted that a buy-America bill she sponsored — mandating that all federally funded water infrastructure projects use American-made iron and steel — was signed into law by then-President Trump in October 2018.

Anyone searching for more information on that bill or seeking to verify her claims, could easily turn up this nugget in the press releases posted on her website:

“On April 18, 2017, while visiting Kenosha, local media asked President Trump if he supported Senator Baldwin’s permanent Buy America standard. President Trump said ‘I do,’ and also said, ‘I agree with her 100%.’”

And this past summer, Baldwin was touting Senate committee approval of a bill she co-sponsored with Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, that seeks to ensure that taxpayer-funded inventions are manufactured in the United States rather than in “adversarial countries like China.”

She’s also been slamming Hovde, a millionaire businessman, whom she has portrayed as an outsider out of touch with Wisconsin values.

Baldwin and her campaign have noted that Hovde’s wealth mostly comes from his management of a Utah-based bank, real estate holdings, and his ownership of a $7 million estate in Laguna Beach, California.

However, perhaps the most withering of her attacks came in a recent repost on the X social media platform that included a series of quotes from the Republican candidate gathered at EricHovdeDoesntLikeYou.com. 

On the video Hovde can be heard making the following comments.

“If you’re in a nursing home, you only have a five-, six-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a position to vote.”

“It’s just deplorable, at how low people are keeping themselves informed. I like to say, sadly with, you know, females, they spend too much time focused on what’s going on in Hollywood.”

“I think part of it is that kids haven’t been taught the same work ethic that the baby boomer generation has.”

Each quote features a rebuttal from a Wisconsin senior, woman, or college student.

The video ends with all three saying, simultaneously, “What a jerk!”

Hovde is pitting his hopes on eroding Baldwin’s support in Wisconsin’s rural communities and hoping a high turnout in those areas due to Trump’s leading the GOP ticket will help him overcome anticipated strong turnouts in Milwaukee and Dane counties, both of which are considered Democratic strongholds.

Hovde has spent much of his time since August campaigning on popular Republican issues like immigration and the economy, and trying to link Baldwin to Joe Biden, who polls show consistently gets a low job approval rating from likely Wisconsin voters.

His television and radio ads blame Baldwin for high inflation, while also hitting her on the “failed border policy” that the GOP is trying to hang on all Democratic candidates this year, as well as crime.

He has also been portraying Baldwin as a “career politician” who has lost touch with rank and file Wisconsinites.

“Tammy Baldwin has been in Washington for 25 years and things have only gotten worse,” Hovde said in a statement immediately after his primary win. “It’s time for change.”

She responded with her own statement, calling Hovde “a multi-millionaire California bank owner who has insulted our seniors, our farmers, our moms, and just about everyone else in our great state.

“While he runs to put the wealthy and well-connected like himself first, I will always stand up for the working people of Wisconsin,” she said.

Hovde has been endorsed by Trump, and he’s spending a considerable amount of his own money on the race — by some accounts, $13 million during his four-month primary campaign alone.

This past week, both candidates appeared before a gathering of the Wisconsin Counties Association, which is sponsoring the Oct. 18 debate.

Baldwin, the briefer of the two, spoke mostly of her history in Wisconsin and her political career, which started when she was elected at the age of 24, to the Dane County Board of Supervisors.

She also touted the federal funding that’s flowed into the state due to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.

Hovde, who spoke nearly four times longer than Baldwin, told the county officials that his priorities include cutting inflation and the federal debt, improving health care and addressing the nation’s housing shortage.

He closed by saying he hopes that race is ultimately decided on the issues, and not negative campaign ads.

“We’ve got to lower the rhetoric,” he said.

That’s not very likely.

According to AdImpact, Baldwin has about $23.3 million reserved to pay for campaign advertising from now through November. Hovde has about $3.4 million allocated for campaign advertising over the next five weeks.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue