Tammy Baldwin declares victory in U.S. Senate race, but no official call made

No official call has been made in Wisconsin's U.S. Senate race, but incumbent Tammy Baldwin declared victory early Wednesday morning.

With 99% of the votes counted, the Madison Democrat had regained a narrow lead over Republican Challenger Eric Hovde 49.3% to 48.6% after appearing to trail the Madison businessman much of Tuesday night.

"It is clear that the voters have spoken and our campaign has won," Baldwin said in a statement at about 4:30 a.m. "The people of Wisconsin have chosen someone who always puts Wisconsin first, someone who shows up, listens, and works with everyone to get the job done. And they rejected the billionaires and the special interests who want to come to our state, spread hate and division, and buy their way into power."

Hovde held a slight lead after after polls closed Tuesday night, but tens of thousands of votes, many of them from Democratic-rich Milwaukee, had yet to be counted. Hovde had also slightly outperformed top Republican candidate former President Donald Trump in the key conservative-leaning counties surrounding Milwaukee.

Official results likely wouldn't be known until later Wednesday. While Milwaukee's vote count typically drags take late into the night to finish counting all its ballots, the process was further delayed this year after issues with unlocked ballot tabulating machines led county party leaders from both sides to agree to restart the tabulation process.

That meant running about 30,000 votes back through the machines, delaying the final tally by hours, officials said.

UW-Madison Elections Research Center Director Barry Burden told the Wisconsin State Journal the Senate race is largely mirroring the presidential, but added this is likely the most difficult one Baldwin has run.

"She's never lost a race, but this is probably her least successful of them all," he said.

That's a change for Baldwin, who has usually outperformed Democrats at the top of the ticket, but it "doesn't look like that's happening this time around."

Should her lead hold, it will mark Baldwin's third term in the Senate, where she'll serve alongside the state's other U.S. senator, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh. Republicans haven't held both of Wisconsin's Senate seat since Joe McCarthy and Alexander Wiley served together from 1947 through 1957. Democrats have held both seats at the same time a few times since then.

The race was characterized by major fundraising and ad spending on both sides, with Baldwin raising over $38 million compared to Hovde's $28 million, $20 million of which he loaned to his campaign.

Baldwin has sought to paint Hovde as an out-of-state billionaire with ads highlighting his Utah-based bank Sunwest, and his influence in California She's also touted various legislation she's worked on, such as the CHIPS Act, which includes a Buy American provision she specifically lobbied for.

Hovde launched ads defending his Madison ties and worked to color Baldwin as a puppet of the Democratic Party rather than someone who votes for her constituents. He has also stressed his experience in the business world and argued it makes him better suited to deal with inflation and other economic issues.

Baldwin has also targeted Hovde's abortion stance and argued she will work to bring back federal protections for abortion access.

Hovde has said he supported the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, but he wouldn't support a national abortion ban. The last time he ran for Senate in 2012, he said he was "totally opposed" to abortion.

Baldwin also mounted an ad campaign knocking Hovde for appearing to call farmers "lazy," though the Wisconsin State Journal found the clip Baldwin's ads aired to be missing context.

Likewise, Hovde has launched ads claiming Baldwin is " in bed with Wall Street ," a reference to Baldwin's girlfriend Maria Brisbane, a Wall Street private investment advisor. The ad suggested Baldwin and Brisbane could be sharing insider secrets.

The State Journal found that Brisbane's employer, Morgan Stanley, has a policy prohibiting its employees from sharing insider secrets and Baldwin's campaign said the senator "has never shared inside information and she never will."

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