Sen. Tammy Baldwin is hitting back at her Republican opponent, Eric Hovde, after he compared her comments about former President Trump’s voters to those made by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Baldwin’s campaign released a new digital ad that features Hovde’s own remarks from a 2016 interview on “The Jerry Bader Show.” In the interview, Hovde criticized the level of civic knowledge among average Americans.
“Most of the country, sadly, doesn’t know what the heck is going on,” Hovde said. “They can’t even tell you when our country was founded, who the vice president is, how many senators there are. It’s just deplorable how low people are keeping themselves informed.”
Hovde also added, “I like to say, sadly, with females, they spend too much time with what’s going on in Hollywood.
And with males, they engross themselves too much with sports. And now it’s not just sports, it’s fantasy sports.”
Baldwin’s ad criticized these past remarks, asking, “Too much sports? Eric Hovde really doesn’t know Wisconsin.
Too much time in California.”
Hovde’s campaign did not provide comment in time for publication.
Baldwin’s ad challenges Hovde’s past
However, they recently unveiled their own television spot that compares Baldwin’s past comments on Trump voters to Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” remark.
“Donald Trump might be one of the most offensive, hateful and unacceptable presidential candidates we’ve ever had. So what does that say about the people who support him?” Baldwin said in a 2016 speech featured in Hovde’s ad. Despite the contentious exchanges, Baldwin has been making efforts to appeal to Republicans and Trump supporters during her current campaign, even featuring the former president in some of her ads.
With less than two weeks until Election Day, Wisconsin remains a presidential battleground state and a crucial toss-up in the Senate race. A recent poll showed Baldwin leading Hovde by just one point, 49% to 48%. The poll, conducted between Oct.
18 and 21, interviewed 1,108 likely voters in Wisconsin and has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points. Top political analysts consider the race a “Toss Up,” and as split-ticket voting becomes increasingly rare, the party that wins the presidency is also likely to win the Senate races in several key states, including Wisconsin. Both candidates are pulling out all the stops in the final days leading up to the election as Wisconsin voters prepare to choose their Senate representative.
