Senator Baldwin Wins Election Against Hovde

Thursday, November 7th, 2024 -- 11:00 AM

(Anya Van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio) Democrat Tammy Baldwin has defeated Republican challenger Eric Hovde to narrowly clinch her third term in the U.S. Senate, following a pricey, and at turns nasty, campaign that attracted national attention and tens of millions in outside spending.

The Associated Press called the race for Baldwin at 12:42 p.m Wednesday. All results are unofficial until they’re certified in coming weeks. With 99 percent of the precincts reported, Baldwin led Hovde by a margin of 0.9 percent of the vote.

That’s close enough for Hovde to ask for a recount, a possibility which Wisconsin GOP leadership didn’t rule out Wednesday morning. Her win wasn’t enough to stave off a change of control of the U.S. Senate, which flipped to Republican control late Tuesday night.

And it was a shockingly close outcome for Baldwin, who has not lost a race in her nearly four-decade political career, and has been viewed as an outlier in Democratic politics for outperforming members of her own party in areas of the state that have swung rightwards in recent years.

The win, by a preliminary margin of about 29,000 votes, is a whisker compared to her previous elections. In 2012, she defeated former Gov. Tommy Thompson by about 5.5 percentage points. In 2018, she defeated former state Sen. Leah Vukmir by nearly 11 points.

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