Defeated GOP Senate candidate Hovde refuses to concede to Baldwin

A week after Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde lost a close race to Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin, he posted a video Tuesday in which he left open the possibility of requesting a recount.
The nearly 5-minute video, posted to X, included a series of misleading comments about the Milwaukee and Wisconsin election commissions.
The city Election Commission in a statement said it “unequivocally refutes Eric Hovde’s baseless claims regarding the integrity of our election process.”
With 99% of the state’s votes counted, Baldwin led Hovde by 49.4% to 48.5% — a margin of 28,958 votes — in a race that drew national attention and massive spending. Baldwin declared victory, and The Associated Press called the race for her the day after the election.
But on Tuesday, Hovde had still not conceded, saying, “Once the final information is available and all options are reviewed, I will announce my decision on how I will proceed.”
“As a candidate, Eric Hovde has the right to request a recount and pursue legal remedies to address whatever concerns he may have regarding the election,” Republican Party of Wisconsin executive director Andrew Iverson said in a statement.
A Republican official told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that John Eastman, one of the architects of former President Donald Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election, and Wisconsin political operative Nathan Trueblood, were advising Hovde on his decisions.
“Eric Hovde has stooped as low as a politician can go: sowing doubt about our very democracy,” Baldwin campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo said. “Leaders on both sides of the aisle should condemn the lies he’s spreading and the pathetic campaign he continues to run. Tammy Baldwin has won this race and there is only one thing for Eric Hovde to do: concede.”
In Wisconsin, a candidate can demand a recount if the official tally shows the candidate losing by 1 percentage point or less. If a candidate were behind by less than a quarter of a point, the state would pay for the recount. If the candidate is behind by a quarter of a point to 1 point, the campaign would have to pay a few million dollars to cover the cost of the recount.
In statewide elections, a candidate must wait until Wisconsin counties are done certifying their results to request a recount.
By Nov. 19, two weeks after Election Day, each county board must certify its general election results and deliver them to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The deadline to request a recount is 5 p.m. on the third business day after the Elections Commission receives the last statement of results from county canvassers, according to the commission’s recount manual.
Hovde said in his video that he was “shocked” by Milwaukee’s reporting of its absentee ballot results early Wednesday morning, despite the widespread knowledge that the state’s most populous city consistently reports its absentee ballots all at once early the morning after a major election like last week’s.
And, a further delay had been expected following the city’s decision to restart the counting after more than 30,000 ballots had already been tabulated. That decision — which the city’s top election official said was made out of an “abundance of caution” and in consultation with Democrats and Republicans — caused Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming to personally come to the city’s downtown absentee ballot counting operation the afternoon of Nov. 5.
“Like many of my supporters, I was shocked by what unfolded on election night,” he said. “At 1 a.m., I was receiving calls of congratulations, and based on the models, it appeared I would win the Senate race.”
Then, hours later, he recounted, the results of the city’s 108,325 absentee ballots were added to the city’s totals from its polling places.
Under Wisconsin law, absentee ballots cannot be processed before 7 a.m. on Election Day. The Republican-controlled state Senate earlier this year let a bipartisan bill die that would have made it possible for clerks to start processing — and finish counting — absentee ballots earlier.
That means that especially in high-turnout elections like those for president, the city’s absentee ballot results are often reported late at night because of the sheer number that must be counted.
The volume of ballots in this heavily Democratic city means those votes can change the course of statewide elections when they are added to the total, often late at night.
“Every aspect of the (Milwaukee Election Commission’s) operations was conducted with transparency and in strict adherence to established laws and procedures,” the Election Commission said in the statement. “It is both expected and routine that absentee ballots—over 100,000 in this case—are counted and reported in the late hours of Election Night due to Wisconsin’s high voter turnout and the rigorous verification standards the MEC upholds.”
This story has been updated with additional information.