Tammy Baldwin Defeats California Businessman to Keep Wisconsin Senate Seat

Weeks after the Cook Political Report chillingly moved Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race to a “toss-up,” incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin defeated her Republican opponent, California businessman Eric Hovde, by a narrow, one-point margin. Hovde owns a bank in California, carpet-bagged to Wisconsin, and in his previous, unsuccessful bid for Senate in 2012, pledged to ban abortion “from conception.” In contrast, Baldwin is the first openly LGBTQ person to serve in the U.S. Senate and has legislated unambiguously in support of reproductive rights.

“I’m proud to head back to the Senate to keep fighting for our workers, farmers, and families that make our state great,” Baldwin told supporters in her victory speech early Wednesday. In a statement, Hovde refused to concede and said he was “disappointed” that a Libertarian candidate siphoned off votes he believed he otherwise would have received.

When Hovde last ran for Senate in 2012, he described himself as “totally opposed to abortion” and “opposed to legalized abortion”—“from conception,” a position that, as we saw in Alabama earlier this year, puts IVF at risk. In April, faced with the deep unpopularity of abortion bans, Hovde seemed to walk back these positions, tentatively saying that people have “a right to make a choice” early in their pregnancy—but that’s still an endorsement of an abortion ban. In May, Hovde said a 12 to 14-week abortion ban seems “reasonable.” Of course, no abortion ban is “reasonable,” period. Hovde was also endorsed by Right to Life Wisconsin, whose stated mission is to make abortion “legally unacceptable.” The organization applauded Hovde’s “strong support for federal right-to-life issues.” To be clear, “strong support for federal right-to-life issues” translates to “strong support for federal abortion ban.”

Over the summer, Hovde continued to bumble out nonsense about the issue. While answering a question about medication abortion during a campaign event, he dangerously and falsely equated Plan B with abortion pills, and compared the dissemination of Plan B pills to drug trafficking—at a time when states like Louisiana are cracking down on medication abortion by conflating it with hard narcotics. It’s scary to picture the consequences of putting someone this ignorant in federal office.

Baldwin’s victory is pivotal at a time when Senate Democrats are increasingly fighting back against Republican threats to not just abortion, but contraception and IVF, too. Republicans flipped the Senate, but, this is at least a win for Wisconsinites, who can rest easy sending an anti-abortion extremist like Hovde back to California.