Breaking a six-day silence after unofficial returns showed him losing to Sen. Tammy Baldwin, whom AP declared the winner of the Wisconsin U.S. Senate race by less than 1 percentage point, Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde on Tuesday criticized the counting process and said he would wait to decide whether to seek a recount.
In a subsequent talk radio interview, however, Hovde appeared to acknowledge that he had lost the election.
“It’s the most painful loss I’ve ever experienced,” Hovde told Jessica McBride, the guest host on Mark Belling’s show on Milwaukee station WISN 1130. The remark was first reported by the Associated Press.
There has been no evidence of irregularities in the vote count for the Nov. 5 election, which Baldwin won by about 29,000 votes according to unofficial totals reported by Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Counties are currently reviewing the ballots and will submit their official results to the Wisconsin Elections Commission by Nov. 19. The commission completes its certification of the vote by Dec. 1.
Prior to his talk show appearance Tuesday, Hovde posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, in which he said that he hadn’t spoken about the outcome since election night because “I believe it’s better not to comment until I have the facts.”
Supporters “have reached out and urged me to contest the election,” he said. “While I’m deeply concerned, asking for a recount is a serious decision that requires careful consideration.”
Hovde said differences between the count of registered voters and ballots cast in some Milwaukee wards raised questions, and he also questioned a batch of absentee ballots counted in the early hours Wednesday that heavily favored Baldwin.
Records of registered voters as of Election Day don’t include people who register at the polls, however. In addition, absentee ballots in Milwaukee often get counted later in the process and historically have included a large proportion of Democratic voters….