Eric Hovde

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Eric Hovde

Republican Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 5, 2024

Education

Bachelor's

University of Wisconsin

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Twitter

Campaign Instagram

Campaign YouTube

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Eric Hovde (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. Senate to represent Wisconsin. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.

Biography

Eric Hovde was born in and lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Hovde graduated from East High School and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His career experience includes being an entrepreneur and founding charitable organization The Hovde Foundation with his brother.

Elections

2024

See also: United States Senate election in Wisconsin, 2024

General election

General election for U.S. Senate Wisconsin

Incumbent Tammy Baldwin defeated Eric Hovde, Phillip Anderson, Thomas Leager, and John Schiess in the general election for U.S. Senate Wisconsin on November 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Tammy Baldwin (D)	49.3	1,672,777
		Eric Hovde (R)	48.5	1,643,996
		Phillip Anderson (Disrupt The Corruption Party)	1.2	42,315
		Thomas Leager (America First Party)	0.8	28,751
		John Schiess (Independent) (Write-in)	0.0	26
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	2,922

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 3,390,787
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Joshua Harrington (No Party Affiliation)
• Scott Aubart (American Independent Party)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Wisconsin

Incumbent Tammy Baldwin advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Wisconsin on August 13, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Tammy Baldwin	99.8	639,049
		Other/Write-in votes	0.2	1,198

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 640,247
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. Senate Wisconsin

Eric Hovde defeated Charles Barman and Rejani Raveendran in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Wisconsin on August 13, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Eric Hovde	86.2	477,197
		Charles Barman	7.4	40,990
		Rejani Raveendran	6.3	34,612
		Other/Write-in votes	0.1	748

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 553,547
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Dan Helm (R)
• Matthew Harvey (R)
• Stacey Klein (R)
• Patrick Schaefer-Wicke (R)
• Kyle Corrigan (R)
• Douglas Alexander (R)

Endorsements

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Hovde received the following endorsements.

• Former President Donald Trump (R)

2012

See also: United States Senate elections in Wisconsin, 2012

Hovde ran in the 2012 election for the U.S. Senate, representing Wisconsin. He sought the nomination on the Republican ticket. He faced Mark Neumann, Jeff Fitzgerald, John Schiess and was defeated by Tommy Thompson in the August 14 Republican primary. Two Democratic political action committees, Majority PAC and Women Vote! spent money running ads against Hovde and Thompson. Majority PAC spent $370,000 and Women Vote! spent $420,000. Overall, $3.4 million were spent by outside groups about Republican candidates in the senate primary race.

Swing seat

The University of Virginia's Center for Politics published an article called Sabato's Crystal Ball on March 22, 2012, detailing the eight races in the Senate in 2012 that will decide the political fate of which party will end up with control in 2013. The seat rated a toss-up that the Sabato's Crystal Ball believes could be decided by the party's nomination is the Senate seat in Wisconsin. If former Governor Tommy Thompson (R) can win the Republican nomination and make it to the general election in November, the article believes he would have a significant edge. According to the article, "Given the current state of these toss ups, it’s not a stretch to think that a Thompson victory in Wisconsin could end up giving Republicans their 51st Senate seat."

Polling

A July poll put Hovde up two percentage points over Tommy Thompson in the Republican primary. The same poll also showed both Hovde and Thompson having equal chances of beating Democratic contender Tammy Baldwin.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Eric Hovde did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign website

Hovde’s campaign website stated the following:

“	ISSUES COST OF LIVING Debt and Inflation Tackling Record Inflation and Preventing a Debt Crisis High levels of government debt pose significant dangers to a country’s economic stability and long-term prospects. Since the end of the 2020 fiscal year, President Biden and Senator Baldwin have added over $7.3 trillion of debt, more than the first 228 years of our nation’s history combined. Our total public debt is a staggering $34 trillion, and counting… Such debt hinders economic growth, creates financial vulnerabilities, and limits our ability to respond to future crises. There are two paths out of this predicament, but both cause significant harm to a country’s citizens: defaulting or inflating away the debt. Defaulting on debt involves a government’s inability or refusal to meet its debt obligations. This has catastrophic consequences particularly in the case of the United States. If the U.S. were to default it would collapse most financial institutions in the U.S. and globally. It would put the U.S. economy and the globe into a depression that would take over a decade to resolve. Unemployment would skyrocket and social instability would rise dramatically. It would also destroy investor confidence, trigger capital flight, and the U.S. would immediately lose its reserve currency status. To say the least, this is not an option that the U.S. can pursue like many third world countries have done in the past. The inflationary approach involves rapidly increasing the money supply to devalue the debt. While this might seem like a convenient solution, it has extremely detrimental effects on the broader population. It devalues people’s savings and is particularly harmful to the elderly who rely on savings because they are no longer employed. Inflation also erodes the purchasing power of individuals and businesses, leading to higher costs of living. This harms everyone in a society but is particularly hard on middle- and working-class families and again, the elderly. Further it starts to have a corrosive impact on economic growth as people have to shift all their income to basic necessities collapsing other industries that do not provide essential goods and services. This ultimately leads to economic stagflation where an economy is no longer growing, but prices continue to increase. This is a painful remedy that lowers the standard of living for all but a very few. The U.S. has already started down the path of trying to inflate away the debt. The Biden administration has spent trillions even after we were coming out of the COVID lockdowns in 2021 and 2022. The Federal Reserve, due to the lockdowns of our economy in 2020 and 2021, increased the money supply by 40% during this period. As a result, inflation spiked to the highest levels in 40 years. People feel it at the gas pump, grocery stores, car prices, home prices, and in everyday services. In response to the rising inflation, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates rapidly which compounds the debt problem the U.S. is facing because as rates adjust higher, the government will be forced to pay higher interest costs on its debt. It is now projected that total interest costs will be close to $1 trillion for this year. The interest cost on our debt will now start squeezing out more productive uses of capital from the U.S. government budget and overall economy making it harder to achieve normal historical growth rates over the mid to long term. Our elected officials continue to show disregard for the financial stability of our country with their addiction to spending trillions of dollars to get reelected and continuing to drive greater deficits. By doing so they are burdening our future generations with near insurmountable levels of debt. It is imperative that we start to change course and dramatically reduce our country’s federal spending and deficits. Responsible fiscal management remains the cornerstone of avoiding such dire circumstances and ensuring a prosperous future for our country. Immigration Securing the Border The Biden Administration and Senator Baldwin have fueled the worst border crisis in our nation’s history. Their refusal to secure our southern border and enforce our immigration laws has put the security of our nation at great risk, allowed the unabated flow of drugs from Mexico and China, and created a humanitarian crisis for migrants. Since President Biden took office there have been more than 10 million illegal border crossings. This is nearly double the population of Wisconsin and more than the populations of 41 individual states. The status quo is simply unsustainable. With the mass influx of migrants across our border, many of our institutions – hospitals, hotels, schools, and community centers – are experiencing increased stress. In fact, some hospitals are turning away patients and are on the verge of collapse due to the increased strain. From a security standpoint, the number of undocumented individuals traveling from all over the world whose backgrounds and intentions are unknown raises concerns for our country, our citizens, and our way of life. President Biden’s and Senator Baldwin’s border policy has also empowered the cartels, subsequently increasing the flow of drugs, including highly fatal drugs like fentanyl. Drug use and overdose deaths have increased dramatically as a result. By the time many migrants reach the U.S. – Mexico border, many of them have been separated from their families and exploited by smugglers and human traffickers. This has created an enormous humanitarian crisis. We have always been a nation of immigrants, but the American Dream should be pursued legally through the appropriate channels. The Biden-Baldwin open border policy is fueling a crisis on our southern border and many people have lost their lives because of it. Our laws need to be enforced and our borders strengthened if we want to keep our streets safe and protect the lives of U.S. citizens and migrants. Foreign Policy Reclaiming America’s Position as a Strong Global Leader The Biden Administration and Senator Baldwin have fueled the worst border crisis in our nation’s history. Their refusal to secure our southern border and enforce our immigration laws has put the security of our nation at great risk, allowed the unabated flow of drugs from Mexico and China, and created a humanitarian crisis for migrants. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was a shameful betrayal and an embarrassment. We abandoned our military base, withdrew our troops, and left behind $7 billion of weapons, military vehicles, and communications equipment that went straight into the hands of the Taliban. More importantly, we lost 13 American service members, deserted hundreds of US citizens, and thousands of allies who had risked their lives for our country and our troops. Our retreat emboldened foreign adversaries to become more aggressive – and our allies have paid the price. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stretched on for two years and cost hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives. The war’s devastation of life and infrastructure will set the country back decades. The Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Israel in October resulted in more than 1,000 Israeli deaths. Despite Iran’s long history of financing terrorism, my opponent Senator Baldwin was one of the staunchest supporters of the Iran deal which sent billions of dollars and plane loads of cash to Iran. In East Asia, China continues to build an arsenal of warships and is upping their aggression towards Taiwan. Our involvement across the globe in multiple conflicts stretches thin our ability to protect our allies and emboldens our enemies. By appeasing dictators and funding evil regimes, Senator Baldwin and President Biden have put American troops at risk and endangered nations all over the world. We must lead through deterrence, prioritizing our national security and the security of our allies by sending a clear message of strength to the world, to put an end to these wars and stop future ones from occurring. Healthcare Fixing Our Broken Healthcare System Our healthcare system is deeply flawed and in need of reform. Over the last decade, quality of care has decreased, and insurance premiums have doubled, in some cases tripled. This is largely a result of the failures of Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Initially promised to be a groundbreaking reform aimed at providing affordable care for all, the ACA has failed to live up to its expectation. Instead of a decrease in healthcare costs, Americans have experienced a sharp increase in insurance premiums, placing a burden on middle- and working-class families, many of whom are already struggling with rising costs. Perverse incentives have made the insurance industry less competitive, less transparent, of lower quality, and more expensive. Before the ACA, health insurers were incentivized to manage costs because the difference between health insurance premiums and the claims paid to healthcare providers was their profit. After the ACA, insurance companies’ profits were capped and calculated as a percentage of healthcare spending; therefore, the only way to increase profits was to increase overall healthcare spending. Many people, including those with preexisting conditions like myself, saw their drug prices skyrocket. Sadly, many are still forced to decide every month between the drugs they need to survive and basic necessities. Democrats’ failed promises have cost Americans immensely. The promise of expanded healthcare options has resulted in fewer choices and limited coverage. Americans spend the most of any developed country on healthcare, despite the quality of care decreasing over time. DC politicians have spent years talking about this issue, and yet they have done nothing about it. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in the 1990s, I understand how the failures of our healthcare system affect my fellow Wisconsinites every day. I have lived it. It’s time to reform our healthcare so that it works for all Americans.	”
—Eric Hovde’s campaign website (2024)

2012

Hovde discussed his platform on his campaign website:

• "Small and medium-size businesses are the engine of our economy. We need to encourage innovation and investment through pro-business and pro-growth policies that will get our economy moving in the right direction.
• If we are going to get serious about job creation, we need to make sure that everybody who wants to find work can and we need a fair and equitable tax system that will allow businesses of all sizes and individuals from all walks of life to compete and thrive.
• While there is no easy solution to fixing the economic mess that we find ourselves in today, progress will require restructuring at every level. This includes the following:
• Reducing the size of government
• Reducing debt and deficit
• Reforming the tax code
• Significantly reducing regulations
• Overhauling trade policy
• Halting current Federal Reserve monetary easing

Campaign finance summary

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Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

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Eric Hovde campaign contribution history

Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2024*	U.S. Senate Wisconsin	Lost general	$31,958,333	$31,822,973
Grand total			$31,958,333	$31,822,973
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

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Footnotes

[show]

Wisconsin's current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Tammy Baldwin (D)

Ronald Johnson (R)

Representatives

District 1

Bryan Steil (R)

District 2

Mark Pocan (D)

District 3

Derrick Van Orden (R)

District 4

Gwen Moore (D)

District 5

Scott Fitzgerald (R)

District 6

Glenn Grothman (R)

District 7

Tom Tiffany (R)

District 8

Tony Wied (R)

Republican Party (7)

Democratic Party (3)