WASHINGTON — With three weeks until Election Day, campaign commercials for the U.S. Senate candidates in Wisconsin are now a constant presence on television in the state. Incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and her Republican opponent Eric Hovde are slamming each other on the small screen, as they battle in a race that could determine which party controls the Senate next year.
Hovde is fending off attacks from the left in a new satirical ad.
“Meet Eric Hovde, the worst person in human history,” the narrator of the ad says. “He hates puppies, rainbows, football and ice cream.”
Hovde is trying to dispel criticisms from Baldwin. For months, she’s highlighted his ties to the West Coast and branded him as an out-of-touch multimillionaire.
Now, Hovde is trying to turn the tables, focusing on Baldwin and her partner, who works in wealth management.
“They spend their time in New York and D.C. in their multi-million dollar homes,” an ad from the Fix Washington PAC alleges of Baldwin.
“This ad is a complete lie,” a Baldwin ad snaps back. “It’s Eric Hovde who owns a $3 billion California bank.”
“I think that Democrats have made extensive use of Hovde’s business background and his wealth in the campaign,” said Anthony Chergosky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “So at this point, Hovde might just be trying to fight to a draw.”
Chergosky said a similar theme has emerged in the race for president.
“Harris has been more forceful on the issue of prices than Biden was,” he explained. “She has tried to develop campaign themes that address voters’ concerns about prices and inflation by talking about price gouging and other matters such as housing that could help reduce costs for people now. Harris is not trying to win the issue of prices, but she’s trying to mitigate or reduce the damage that the topic might be doing to her campaign. So I think it’s very similar here. Candidates don’t need to win every single issue. They don’t need to win every single theme of a campaign. But they can’t be greatly damaged by any one theme.”
This tit-for-tat approach between Baldwin and Hovde has been used for other issues, like social security. Baldwin says Hovde wants to cut the program, using old footage from his 2012 failed Senate race, but Hovde says that’s not true.
“Hovde wants to raise the retirement age as high as 72,” one Baldwin ad claims.
“She never tells the truth. Now she says Eric Hovde wants to raise the retirement age,” responds a narrator in a Hovde ad. “That’s malarkey,” says another.
“Social Security is a massive part of the federal budget. It affects everyone in some way, shape or form. There’s a lot of concern about the future of Social Security,” Chergosky said. “Social Security is known as the third rail of American politics, where if someone threatens to cut it or change it, then it doesn’t turn out well for that office holder most of the time. So it makes sense that the closing argument might be about Social Security.”
Ad Impact, a site that tracks political ads, shows that since July 22, Democrats have spent about $45 million on campaign commercials in the state to Republicans’ nearly $35 million. Democrats have reserved another $19 million in TV time, compared to $16 million for Republicans.
“If Hovde ends up winning, we will look back at this as a real success story for self funding a campaign, and we will also perceive the importance of a party putting late money into a campaign to try to sway those final, remaining persuadable voters,” Chergosky said.
Hovde and Baldwin will go head-to-head in person in their only scheduled debate Friday evening.