Businessman Eric Hovde won the Republican nomination for Senate in Wisconsin on Tuesday, setting up a competitive general election between himself and Democrat incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Hovde was endorsed by former President Trump in his primary race and has already spent a seven-figure sum on his campaign.
He defeated lesser-known challengers Charles Barman and Rejani Raveendran handily in the matchup. Barman is a farmer in Sharon, Wisconsin, who reportedly said he was motivated to run after the riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
“You don’t want to reward bad behavior and vote for Tammy [Baldwin],” he told Wisconsin Public Radio. “You want somebody that’s going to turn around and straighten this mess out.”
Raveendran is reportedly an immigrant from India and is in her senior year at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point studying for a degree in political science as well as a certificate in international relations. She is the chair of the school’s College Republicans chapter in addition to being a single mother, per WPR.
Raveendran said she is separate from Hovde because she has known poverty in her life.
“If you are born a millionaire, if you’re raised a millionaire, and if you made a million dollars, how do you know how a person with homelessness or hunger or poverty or pain feels like?” she told the publication.
The clear front-runner, Hovde ran his primary campaign as a general election campaign. Further, outside groups on the left and right have either attacked or promoted his candidacy despite Hovde not having officially been chosen as the Republican nominee yet.
Hovde recently spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he slammed Baldwin as a “rubber stamp” for President Biden, citing her record of almost always voting in line with him.
“Under President Trump, family budgets were more secure. Our border was secure. Our world was secure. Where Biden and Baldwin have failed, President Trump and I will get the job done,” he told the convention audience last month.
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Baldwin ran in the Democrat primary in Wisconsin unopposed, avoiding any challengers that might have weakened her posture going into the general election.
“Tonight, I’m honored to receive the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to continue our fight to lower costs for Wisconsin families, stand up for American jobs and manufacturing, and restore our reproductive freedoms,” she said in a statement after the Democrat primary.
“While I am running to put Wisconsin families first, my opponent Eric Hovde is a multi millionaire California bank owner who has insulted our seniors, our farmers, our moms, and just about everyone else in our great state. While he runs to put the wealthy and well connected like himself first, I will always stand up for the working people of Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin is one of several battleground states that could go either way in the presidential election. As for the Senate race, the nonpartisan political handicapper Cook Political Report rates the matchup as “Lean Democratic,” alongside races in Pennsylvania and Arizona. The race is one of several that will help determine which party wins the Senate majority.
