U.S. Senate race still too close to call with more than half the vote counted
Wisconsin's Senate race was still too close to call two hours after polls closed Tuesday night.
Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde held a slight lead, but tens of thousands of votes had yet to be counted as of 10 p.m. Poll workers in Milwaukee continued to count ballots late into the night, and too many had not yet been added to the tally to know who won.
Hovde had 49.2% of the vote while incumbent U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin had 48.7% with 60% of Wisconsin's precincts counted.
Hovde has also so far slightly outperformed top Republican candidate former President Donald Trump in the key WOW counties surrounding Milwaukee, which contain a large portion of the state's GOP voters.
The result of the race likely won't be clear until the early hours of Wednesday. While Milwaukee generally does 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.
Should Milwaukee deliver for Baldwin, it'll mark the Madison Dem's third term in the Senate.
But if Hovde's lead holds, it'll mark the first time since Joe McCarthy and Alexander Wiley that Republicans held both of Wisconsin's Senate seats.
McCarthy and Wiley served together from 1947 through 1957, when McCarthy died in office. Democrats have held both seats at the same time a few times since then.
The race has been 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 was loaned to his campaign by the Madison businessman himself.
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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