In post-primary interview, Republican Senate candidate Hovde attacks the economy and Democrats’ message • Wisconsin Examiner

The day after comfortably winning the official Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, Eric Hovde spoke at a luncheon in Madison on Wednesday to discuss his policy priorities in the race and defend former President Trump’s record in the White House. Along the way, he criticized Democrats for the countless “lies” in their campaign messages and the press for overlooking them.

Hovde is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is seeking a third term. In an hour-long interview with WisPolitics’ Jeff Mayers, Hovde dismissed Baldwin as a “career politician,” but, with few exceptions, spent little time talking about the incumbent senator.

Hovde focused on the accusation he has faced since the day he entered the race, denouncing Democratic messaging that portrays him as an out-of-state interloper.

Although he owns a home in Southern California and the Sunwest Bank located there, Hovde noted that he pays state income taxes in Wisconsin and accused the state Democratic Party of obtaining his tax returns from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (something explicitly allowed by Wisconsin law).

Hovde also discussed his work developing real estate in Madison and, at one point, the philanthropic donations his charitable foundation has made in the Madison area.

“Everybody here knows I’m not a Californian,” Hovde said. “I’ve never been a resident of the state of California for a single year in my life, and they (Democrats) spent $5 or $6 million telling people I’m a Californian because I’ve been successful. And I bought a bank in California and, by the way, moved the bank’s headquarters out of California four years ago. I couldn’t stand having to deal with California politics.” (Sunwest is now based in Utah.)

Hovde also flatly denied another recurring Democratic talking point, expressed in an Aug. 9 press release from the Wisconsin Democratic Party that claimed that “foreign banks and governments have filled Hovde’s bank with millions of dollars in deposits.” The press release included a link to a news report which cited federal government reports submitted by the bank.

“I don’t have any investments from foreign countries in my bank,” Hovde told a member of the audience. “It’s just another made-up nonsense.”

Asked about Hovde’s statement, Arik Wolk, rapid response director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said in an email: “Eric Hovde continues to hide the truth about his finances from Wisconsin voters. What foreign governments and banks are depositing money in his bank, whether he paid income taxes in California, and how he would avoid becoming a walking conflict of interest if he wins.”

Recession fears and immigration

Hovde told Mayers that he sees the economy and illegal immigration as top issues in the 2024 election.

Mayers asked Hovde about a report Wednesday morning showing that annual inflation in July had fallen to 2.9%.

“The biggest problem is that we are not seeing a reduction in prices, and this is where people are missing the point,” Hovde said. “The rate of price increases is slowing, but prices have not come down. We have basically devalued people’s purchasing power by 22% over a three-and-a-half-year period.”

Despite lower inflation and continued economic expansion, Hovde said the majority of respondents’ perception that the country is in recession deserves more attention.

“I think we’re on the verge” of a recession, he said, suggesting it could have already begun but that economists typically don’t identify the onset of a recession until months later. “I think we’re in it or very close to it.”

In response to a subsequent question from the audience about his top priorities if Republicans win the White House in November and both chambers of Congress, Hovde said he believed addressing the federal debt was at the top of the list and that government spending should be reduced to its 2019 level.

He said there should be a new round of deregulation, saying it “really sparked the economy” when Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s.

Hovde said that after the economy, “the second most important issue I hear about is the border and all the consequences surrounding it.”

Undocumented immigrants in the United States number “at least 10 million, and most sheriffs along the southern border will say that number is more like 13 to 16 million people,” he said.

He blamed them for obstructing access to health care and housing, as well as “all the crimes that have broken out.” He linked the proliferation of the drug fentanyl, which he blamed for killing more than 100,000 people a year in recent years, to the lack of border security.

Asked whether he agreed with Trump on a “mass deportation” policy, Hovde was reluctant. More people should be deported, prioritizing those with criminal records, he said. But “to think that we are ever going to deport 10 or 16 million people would be impossible.”

The United States should make legal immigration easier, he said, with a time frame for “an affirmative and negative answer” on whether someone “has prospects of coming to this country,” requirements for admission and a timeline for the process.

“I believe in legal immigration,” Hovde said. “Our legal immigration process is fundamentally broken, so we have to address that and we have to shut down the illegal immigration process.”

Abortion, contraception and polls

On abortion, Hovde defended the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and rejected a federally protected right to abortion. The decision sent the issue “back to the states,” he said approvingly.

Hovde said he opposes abortion but believes the law should make exceptions.

“I have always been in favour of exceptions in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother, and I agree that from the beginning of pregnancy a woman should have the right to do so,” she said.

Asked to define the cutoff for “early” in pregnancy, she paused but praised Western European countries for having “figured this out decades ago.”

“It’s sometime in the first trimester, or early second trimester,” Hovde said.

Anti-abortion activists have been openly seeking a national abortion ban, but Hovde said “the only way for that to happen” would be if one party controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress.

He said Wisconsin should hold a referendum to decide whether abortion is legal in the state, although there is currently no mechanism to enact statutes that way here.

When Mayers asked whether women in states where the procedure is banned should be free to travel to states where it is legal if they want an abortion, Hovde seemed to suggest that was not an issue because the vast majority of abortions are induced with medication and people can easily obtain medications by mail anywhere in the U.S.

In his response, he referred to medication abortion as “the morning-after pill.” During the audience question period, a listener corrected him, pointing out that the “morning-after pill” does not induce abortion and that the drugs used for medication abortion are not the same.

“I understand there are two different types of pills,” Hovde replied.

When asked by the same audience member about his opinion on contraception, Hovde said, “I have no problem with contraception.”

Mayers asked him about access to contraception. “Look, it’s a sensitive issue,” Hovde replied. “There are people who have great difficulty with that.” Then, after a moment, he said, “I’m in favor of that, of access.”

The latest polls show Baldwin leading Hovde by about seven percentage points among voters surveyed. Hovde denied any concern that no poll has shown him ahead in the race.

“I feel very good about where I am now,” he said. “And now the core of this campaign will start to be litigated, as people are getting online and becoming much more aware.”