Democrats “are in complete panic mode” in Wisconsin as Republican Eric Hovde has wielded Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-WI) “progressive, progressive left” record – and her alleged corruption – to pull even in the marquee Senate race, Hovde told Breitbart News Daily.
Democrats had taken Baldwin’s hold on the seat for granted before Hovde’s steady summer rise whittled it away. The Cook Political Report shifted the Wisconsin Senate race from “lean Democrat” to “toss up” just weeks before Election Day.
With bullish Republicans pouring money into the state to aid Hovde’s message, Baldwin is pulling out all the stops to paint herself as a moderate and crow about the federal money she has doled out in the state, Hovde told host Mike Slater. The Wall Street Journal recently published a piece on Baldwin’s outreach specifically to farmers.
“It’s stunning, because most — if you drive around the state, you see Hovde and Trump signs on almost every single farm,” he said. “She gives out all this government money. I mean, people have to understand Tammy Baldwin is one of the most extreme radicals you’re going to get.”
Hovde said farmers and other voters in Wisconsin aren’t looking the other way at Baldwin’s radical record just because she has doled out money throughout the state – something all sitting senators do regularly.
“A lot of farmers, they don’t want anything to do with her,” he said. “They can’t stand the regulations that she pushes.”
Baldwin’s record pushing a radical progressive agenda has turned off voters as well, Hovde says.
“She took all our taxpayer money to fund the transgender clinic that does this on children, and they don’t even notify parents here in the Madison area,” he told Slater. “She’s the one of the senators pushing this whole thing by the Department of Education to force a change in Title IX to allow guys to play in girls sports and guys to go into girls bathrooms and locker rooms. She is way out there.
“So I don’t think farmers are buying off on it, but she’s splashing a lot of money.”
Hovde believes Baldwin’s initial campaign strategy of encouraging Trump voters to cross over and support her race has failed as he has publicized her record.
“She’s actually trying to create a Trump-Baldwin voter, if you can believe that one, and there, for a while, there was a group of people that were supporting Trump and going to vote for her, because they didn’t understand how radical — because she runs back in the northern middle part of our state as this moderate person, and she’s anything but,” Hovde said.
He elaborated, “This is a woman who called Donald Trump one of the most dangerous men with a dark soul. You know, she’s one of the ones wearing the bright white coat when President Trump was giving a State of the Union speech. She said very derogatory things about Trump voters. So look, as this race is progressing, a lot of the Trump supporters are figuring out, wait, no, this woman hates us, and so they’re starting to drop away and move away from her.”
Hovde hammered Baldwin for corruption, telling Slater that Baldwin has fraudulently portrayed herself to Wisconsin voters.
“I think as, as this race continues to sharpen, more of those people’s eyes are going to wake up, and again, she’s a fraud,” he said. “Look at her. She’s ran against Wall Street her whole life, and yet she her partner, Maria Brisbane, is a Wall Street executive that designs tax strategies for the uber wealthy and invests in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. So Tammy largely lives on Wall Street.”
He eviscerated her for her close ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
“Tammy says she’s fighting against Big Pharma, and yet she takes more money from Big Pharma,” he said. “And [Baldwin’s partner] Maria’s investing in Big Pharma, but they don’t have to disclose it, because they’re not legally married. They’re just, you know, living with each other. … She’s corrupt. She’s a fraud.”
He hammered Baldwin as a career politician who never lived in the real world and had to deal with the consequences of her radical agenda.
“Her big thing is pushing real radical social agendas,” he said. “And of course, she’s a classic rubber stamp for whatever the progressive left wants. She voted for all the Joe Biden stuff, 95.5% of time. She’s like Kamala Harris – doesn’t understand her head from her foot when it comes to economics. She’s just clueless on that stuff.”
He added, “But you know, how could she understand anything? This is a person who literally came out of college, ran for county board, then state assembly, then Congress and then Senate. She’s never operated in the real world.”
Hovde discussed healthcare, telling Slater that Baldwin does not understand the struggles most Americans face.
“Our healthcare system’s failing largely due to Obamacare,” he said. “Our costs continue to rise, our access to care continues to fall. Family doctors have all been wiped out. Now, how is Senator Baldwin ever going to figure out how to fix that? She’s never had to buy herself health insurance. She’s always been given it.”
He contrasted Baldwin’s experience with real world concerns like health care and housing – two growing issues in the election cycle – with his own as a businessman and private citizen.
“I’ve not only had to buy [health care] myself,” he said. “I’ve had to buy thousands of employees’ health insurance and figure out the mess our health care industry is right now. So you know, how’s she going to know how to fix the lack of affordable housing? She’s never operated in the real world. I have a development company. How does she understand the severe problems and the debt crisis that politicians like her have put ourselves in?”
Hovde said Baldwin is Exhibit A of the problem with Washington, DC, and the political class.
“This is the problem with Washington, DC. We’ve developed these career politicians that know nothing,” he fumed. “And our founding fathers wanted us to have citizen legislators, people that had real-life experience, be it a business person, a farmer, a doctor that went and took their skill sets to Washington, DC, to help improve our country, and then step back out and serve a term or two. Now, we’ve developed this political class, and she’s exactly one of those, and they — she — knows nothing, and she’s bought off. And that’s what we need to sweep out.”
Hovde said Baldwin has benefited politically from national trends but has never been a fit in purple Wisconsin, and “her approvals are dwindling very fast” as voters learn her record.
“She came in on Obama’s coattails, and then she got lucky in ’18 because it was a wave here for Democrats,” he explained. “And the simple fact is, she’s been good at running as something she’s not in every place in the state, with the exception of Madison and downtown Milwaukee, but now it’s starting to get exposed of where she really is, and I think people are waking up and going, ‘What? I didn’t know Tammy pushed all this.'”
Hovde asked listeners to help his campaign, explaining that Republicans need to secure the largest majority possible in the Senate to overcome votes from liberal Republicans like Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) on Supreme Court nominees and other critical issues.
“Let’s go take our country back,” he said. “That’s why I got into this thing, because I love America, and we’ve got to say that.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.