With less than a month until Election Day, many of the Senate battlegrounds have begun to tighten. Our Swing State Project surveys last week showed Wisconsin to be the closest Senate race of the five battlegrounds polled, with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s seven-point August lead shrinking to two points, 49%-47%, over GOP challenger Eric Hovde.
Another poll from the respected Marquette Law School last week still showed Baldwin with a seven point edge, 53%-46%. However, private polling from both parties mirrors what our survey found — that this race is within the margin of error — and both Republicans and Democrats view other polls as outliers.
This tightening, as Hovde has further consolidated Republicans behind him and brought independents over to his side, is largely predictable. Wisconsin is one of the most evenly divided states in the country, and the 2022 Senate race was decided by one point. While Baldwin is still leading independents by eight points, 50%-42%, we have seen an 11-point swing among the bloc toward Hovde since August.
Hovde, a self-funding venture capitalist, was initially touted as
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