MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde conceded defeat on Monday to Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin in their U.S. Senate race, saying he did not want to "add to political strife through a contentious recount” even though he raised debunked election conspiracies.
Hovde, who was backed by President-elect Donald Trump, could have requested a recount because his margin of defeat was less than 1 percentage point, at about 29,000 votes. He would have had to pay for it himself.
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Baldwin’s campaign referred requests for comment on Hovde’s concession on Monday to her victory speech last week. In that address, Baldwin pledged to work with Trump when possible but also vowed to fight him to protect the national health care law and abortion rights.
Hovde, in his concession video, repeated claims he first made last week, saying there were “many troubling issues” related to absentee ballots in Milwaukee and when they were reported. Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisan election leaders all refuted the claims of impropriety Hovde made.
“Without a detailed review of all the ballots and their legitimacy, which will be difficult to obtain in the courts, a request for a recount would serve no purpose because you will just be recounting the same ballots regardless of their integrity," Hovde said Monday.
Although there is no evidence of wrongdoing in the election, many Hovde supporters questioned a surge in votes for Baldwin that were reported by Milwaukee around 4:30 a.m. the morning after the election. Those votes put Baldwin over the top.
The votes were the tabulation of absentee ballots from Milwaukee. Those ballots are counted at a central location and reported all at once, often well after midnight on Election Day. Elections officials for years have made clear that those ballots are reported later than usual because of the sheer number that have to be counted and the fact that state law does not allow for processing them before polls open.
Republicans and Democrats alike, along with state and Milwaukee election leaders, warned in the days and weeks leading up to the election that the Milwaukee absentee ballots would be reported late and cause a huge influx of Democratic votes.
Hovde also repeated his complaint about the candidacy of Thomas Leager, who ran as a member of the America First Party. Leager, a far-right candidate who was recruited by Democratic operatives and donors to run as a conservative, finished a distant fourth.
Republicans supported independent presidential candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein in efforts to take votes away from Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to get his name removed from the ballot in Wisconsin and other swing states after he backed Trump.
In the Wisconsin Senate race, Leager got about 400 fewer votes than the margin between Baldwin and Hovde. But Hovde claimed on Monday that he would have won the Senate race if Leager had not been on the ballot.
Baldwin declared victory after The Associated Press called the race for her on Nov. 6. She outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost Wisconsin by about as many votes as Baldwin defeated Hovde.
The Baldwin win came in the face of Democratic losses nationwide that allowed Republicans to take control of the Senate.
Her win was the narrowest of her three Senate races. Baldwin won in 2012 by almost 6 percentage points and in 2018 by nearly 11 points.
Hovde, a multimillionaire bank owner and real estate developer, first ran for Senate in 2012 but lost in the Republican primary. He poured millions of dollars of his own money into his losing campaign this year.
Hovde on Monday did not rule out another political campaign in the future. Some Republicans have floated him as a potential candidate for governor in 2026.