Eric Hovde talks to Action 2 News – Carswellfamilyfoundation

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) – The race in Wisconsin for a U.S. Senate seat is currently one of the most competitive in the country.

Republican Erik Hovde is hoping to unseat Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is seeking a third term.

Baldwin has led in the polls throughout the race, but Republicans believe that if former President Donald Trump manages to win the state, Trump has a good chance of pulling Hovde across the finish line.

No Republican has won this Senate seat since Joseph McCarthy in 1952, which is the longest Democratic winning streak of any U.S. Senate seat in the country. Hovde hopes to beat the odds, but to do so he’ll likely need some help from the top of the order.

In the race for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate seat, Eric Hovde played mostly defense as a barrage of political attack ads tried to define him from the minute he announced his campaign, including one claim that he doesn’t even live here .

So Action 2 News asked Hovda about it. He blames Senator Baldwin for misleading voters.

“I live in Wisconsin. I moved back in 2011. I pay taxes here. I live here. I vote here. As for California, I bought a business there. I have never been a legal resident of the state of California in my life,” said Eric Hovde, (R) candidate for the U.S. Senate. “And yet she ran a whole campaign saying I was a Californian, which is just absurd, absurd.”

Hovde now lives in Shorewood, although he previously lived east, due to his father’s decision to work under former President Ronald Reagan. He attended public school as a child and graduated from UW-Madison.

On these issues, Hovde says inflation and the need to control spending are the main reasons he wants to go to Washington and force a change in direction.

“It is very easy to fight inflation. The bigger problem is addressing government spending because we are now adding another trillion dollars to the debt roughly every four months, and the interest costs on our debt are now greater than our Defense Department budget,” Hovde said. “I don’t want to scare people, but this is how great societies have always failed.”

But Democrats say corporate greed is also a factor in driving up prices, which we asked Hovde about.

“If this was true, then why was there no inflation until 2021?” asks Hovde.

On the issue of abortion, Hovde says he supports state-by-state decisions, a position Donald Trump has taken.

“I said this before I entered this race, and I repeated it in every interview. I had the videos, I do not support a national ban on abortion. I do not support a federal abortion ban. Period,” Hovde said.

Hovde also supports addressing the issue, something Senator Ron Johnson advocated two years ago.

“In my opinion, the people of Wisconsin should resolve this issue through a referendum,” Hovde said.

We also asked Hovde about issues affecting seniors, including the possibility that the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money within the next decade.

“The first thing we’re going to have to do is for anyone who’s on Social Security or getting close to retirement, you can’t touch it, they depend on it, it’s very important to them. So then you’ll have to look at people like me who have been lucky in life and successful, I might have to give up some of my Social Security so other people can have theirs, and then you’ll have to look at the overall structure of federal spending and how to supplement social security there,” Hovde said.

Another ad from Baldwin’s campaign accuses Hovde of wanting to deny voting rights to older people. Hovde argues that the ad also attempts to mislead voters by taking his words out of context.

“In an interview I was asked about the integrity of the elections. I listed four different issues that concerned me, and one of them was the Racine Sheriff’s investigation into voter fraud occurring in nursing homes. I was talking about people who were at the very end of their lives, adult children. went to the sheriff and said someone voted for my parent who either has dementia or is dying and is unable to vote. So, I was talking about how people are exploited at the end of life,” Hovde said.

The race could also decide who controls the U.S. Senate next January, which has led to outside groups spending more than $100 million on behalf of Hovde and Sen. Baldwin.