WI GOP Senate Candidate ‘Shocked By What Unfolded’

Eric Hovde and his supporters have every right to believe something stinks in Milwaukee. 

Of course, the usual suspects in the propaganda press have been quick to mark the Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate an election denier for raising legitimate questions and concerns about Milwaukee’s long-delayed, late-night vote count that — once again — delivered the Democrat candidate just enough votes to win a tight election.

But as The Federalist has reported, leftist-led Milwaukee’s knack for utter incompetence and shady election administration has badly bruised conservatives’ faith in free, fair and transparent elections in Wisconsin’s largest city. Election Day (and into the morning after) 2024 was no exception. 

The race between Hovde, a Madison businessman, and incumbent Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin was so close that the Associated Press didn’t call it for the Madison liberal until the day after the election. As it stands, the unofficial vote count on Wednesday showed Baldwin bested Hovde by some 29,000 votes out of more than 3.34 million ballots cast, a margin of just 0.9 percent. 

Hovde had yet to concede as of Wednesday night. He said earlier this week that he’s weighing his options but won’t make a decision until the official canvass of the statewide vote is completed this week. The Republican challenger could seek a recount, but his campaign would have to pay for it. 

In a video message Tuesday on his X account, he said he was “shocked by what unfolded on election night” in Milwaukee, and that the Democrat enclave’s election administration has further rattled confidence in swing state Wisconsin elections. 

Doesn’t Add Up

At 1 a.m. Wednesday, five hours after the polls closed on Election Day, Team Hovde was in a celebratory mood. The numbers were looking good. He was receiving calls of congratulations. But the albatross was out there: tens of thousands of absentee ballots slowly being counted. 

In the video, Hovde said Milwaukee reported about 108,000 absentee ballots with an overwhelming majority going to Baldwin. He said “nearly 90 percent.” It was closer to 82 percent, according to reports, not unheard of in a Dem-heavy city, but Hovde said the absentee numbers didn’t track with the 22 percent support he drew from Election Day votes. Unsaid and dismissed by corporate media outlets, was the fact that, by GOP accounts, Republicans did a much better job this election in narrowing the yawning gap in the early-vote ballot chase, traditionally dominated by Democrats. 

Hovde noted other voter inconsistencies, such as some Milwaukee voting precincts drawing excessively high rates of registered voters. Election observers told The Federalist that they were seeing a stunning number of same-day registrants on Election Day. In Wisconsin, unlike many other states, residents may register to vote on the day of the election. 

“I was on the northwest side of Milwaukee and it was huge,”  state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Milwaukee-area Republican, told The Federalist Wednesday on the “Vicki McKenna Show.” “I had some chief inspectors tell me that just about everybody who voted [on Election Day] did same-day voting. So parts of the northwest side of Milwaukee were out the [voting site] door in the rain all holding same-day registration forms.”

Hovde said some other numbers don’t seem to add up — by comparison. 

“Additionally, in 2020, President Biden received 10 million more votes than Vice President Harris did last Tuesday. Yet in Milwaukee, even though the population of Milwaukee has declined and registered voters declined by 26,330 and early voting numbers were down, somehow Harris received only 1,100 less votes than Biden did, which is not consistent with most major cities,” the Senate candidate said. “This was accomplished by same-day registration that surged by almost 50 percent on a rainy day.”

Federal Election Commission records show Biden received about 81.28 million votes. As of Wednesday, the unofficial count had Harris collecting about 72.5 million. President-elect Donald Trump led Harris by more than 3 million votes Wednesday, with some ballots left to be counted in some states. Trump won Wisconsin by less than 30,000 votes, about the number Hovde lost by. 

‘Worst They’ve Ever Seen’

As reported, Milwaukee’s Central Count operations were marred with all kinds of problems on Election Day. Instead of starting at 7 a.m. when the polls opened, Brandtjen and other observers told The Federalist that Milwaukee elections chief Paulina Gutierrez didn’t get ballots rolling through the ballot tabulating machines until 9:40 a.m.  

“At 9 o’clock they realized they hadn’t plugged the machines in. They also realized at about 8:30 or 9 o’clock that they don’t have enough people [poll workers], so now they’re calling firefighters,” Brandtjen said. City officials reportedly had to bring in as many as 40 firefighters, health workers, and IT employees to assist in the ballot recount. 

By 11 a.m., Brandtjen said, Central Count had processed just 5,000 absentee ballots out of the 108,000 mountain of early votes to be counted. Mid-afternoon, Republican observers noticed the seals on the machines had been broken, not locked as they should have been at that point. 

Milwaukee election officials were forced to pull more than 30,000 ballots and begin the count over, as observers raised concerns about ballot security and integrity. The ballot count dragged on and on. 

Of the13 different speed counters, Brandtjen said at no point did she see them all operating at the same time. 

“…[T]his is a plan to go as late as possible to make sure there are only a half-dozen people left in the room,” the lawmaker said. “All of these things just lead to absolutely no confidence in the process. For those who have done it multiple years, it was the worst they’ve ever seen.” 

That’s saying something. The 2020 election was marked by all manner of irregularities, delays, and mishaps in Milwaukee. 

Brandtjen said there’s no reason for Milwaukee to finish ballot counting at 3 or 4 in the morning. 

“To go late, I think, is a plan to see if there is a way to find additional allots or make up the difference for candidates,” she said. 

Gutierrez did not return The Federalist’s request for comment. 

‘It’s So Mammoth’

Robert Spindell, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, agreed that Central Count was plagued by too many problems that should never have happened and that it appears to him that those running the show “wanted the results from Central Count to come in very late.” 

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told The Federalist that he doesn’t believe there was anything nefarious behind Milwaukee’s latest election mess, but he does think election administrators were “grossly incompetent.” 

But Hovde said the problem is bigger than Milwaukee. In the video, he noted the nearly 8 million names listed on the voter rolls of a state with less than 6 million residents. The database includes more than 3.6 million “active” voters, eligible voters cleared to vote in elections. 

Spindell said Hovde is right, and Wisconsin’s voter rolls are long overdue for a thorough outside audit. 

“Nobody can get their hands around it. It’s so mammoth,” the commissioner told me in an interview Wednesday evening. “We’ve found all sorts of discrepancies. Some have answers, some don’t.” 

‘The Outcome Would Be Different’

Did Milwaukee’s Election Day mess and the state’s dirty voter rolls cost Republicans another seat in the U.S. Senate? Hovde has his concerns but said a recount wouldn’t allow for a “look at the integrity of a ballot.” 

“What we do know is that Democrats organized and funded a phony ‘American First’ candidate, Thomas Leager, on the ballot to deceive voters that that person was aligned with President Trump in order to siphon votes from me,” Hovde said in the video. 

Leager was a Democrat plant who proved a decent return on investment for Baldwin backers. He told the Associated Press that he was recruited to run by the conservative-sounding, purportedly Trump-supporting Patriots Run Project. Turns out the group is “supported by Democratic firms and donors who worked to install several pro-Trump independent candidates in key House races. Most of them were disabled, retired or both,” according to AP. 

And then AP predicted: “While the strategy hasn’t always worked, Leager is among the candidates who qualified for the Nov. 5 ballot and could complicate Republicans’ efforts to reclaim the Senate.”

Leager picked off 28,724 votes, ballots not likely to have gone to Baldwin. In a snotty story challenging Hovde’s claims, taxpayer-funded Wisconsin Public Radio noted that Leager’s total was “less than Baldwin’s 29,116 vote margin of victory.” It was. By less than 400 votes. That small difference would have made the recount decision a lot easier for Hovde. 

Perennial political candidate Phil Anderson, who has campaigned as a Republican and a libertarian in previous elections, ran on the Disrupt The Corruption Party label in the Senate race. Anderson received 42,344 votes. 

“If either of these candidates had not been in the race the outcome would be different today,” Hovde said. 

Democrats played the margins game with other candidates. They fought unsuccessfully to keep the leftist Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein off the ballot, but won the battle to keep former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on. Kennedy siphoned votes from Trump; Stein sapped votes from Harris. In 2020, Democrats won an election challenge to keep the Green Party off the ballot, a move that surely helped Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden narrowly claim victory over incumbent Trump. 

“Is this right and fair to deceive voters? Is this the democratic process we want? Confidence in our elections is essential to a functioning democracy,” Hovde said. “It’s one thing lie to voters through TV ads like I’m a Californian or I want to ban abortion or ban beer. It is another to fund and organize a false candidate to manipulate voters.” 

‘Does Not Inspire Confidence’

Democrats and their friends in corporate media lambasted Hovde for questioning the results of the election and for not conceding to Baldwin. In an interview Tuesday on NewsTalk 1130 WISN in Milwaukee, Hovde acknowledged that the election results have left him dealing with “the most painful loss” he has ever experienced.

Hovde’s campaign has not returned The Federalist’s requests for comment. 

Baldwin accused Hovde of “spreading lies from the darkest corners of the internet to undercut our free and fair elections.”

“Wisconsin voters made their voices heard,” Baldwin wrote on her X account. “It’s time for Hovde to stop this disgusting attack on our democracy and concede.” 

But Wisconsin voters who have seen too many election shenanigans over the past several years, particularly in Milwaukee, are understandably concerned about the latest round of suspect activities in the latest high-stakes election.

“What happened in this election does not inspire confidence in our process and that is wrong,” Hovde said in the video. 

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.