Anthony Chergosky on the Debate Between Baldwin and Hovde

Frederica Freyberg:
Good evening. I’m Frederica Freyberg. We are fresh off the U.S. Senate debate and we want to talk about it. We’re joined by UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky. And thanks a lot for being here.

Anthony Chergosky:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you watched this debate with us and the rest of the state, presumably. Was there a clear winner in this high stakes event?

Anthony Chergosky:
Well, it was a pretty clear example of the candidates being fired up. I’m not sure that there was an obvious winner on either side, but what we have seen, Fred, is that this campaign has heated up. There are elections prognosticators that are saying this is a very close race. That this race has tightened and we saw that in the intensity that the campaigns, that the candidates brought to the table.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what stood out in that way?

Anthony Chergosky:
Well, the talk about their private lives. We saw Tammy Baldwin get animated and angry when Eric Hovde brought up her partner and alleged conflicts of interest surrounding her work and her partner’s work, her work in the Senate, and what her partner does as a wealth advisor. Meanwhile, Eric Hovde got fired up talking about his role in California, his role as a banker, and how the Baldwin team has made that a relentless and consistent element of this campaign.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right, so their lives has really got them, what got them fired up there. But there were obviously some substantive issues discussed here, including the issue of abortion, where both candidates obviously have gone back and forth and talked about the other’s position. Let’s go ahead and take a listen to what they said on that.

Eric Hovde:
And I think we as a state should resolve this issue with a referendum where everybody gets a right to vote. The voters get a right to vote. I get a right to vote. I clarified where my position is, and that is, I believe that women should have a right to choose early on in their pregnancy. But there comes a point in time where a baby can be born healthy and alive, and I think it’s unconscionable to terminate that child’s life.

Tammy Baldwin:
Eric Hovde, that does not happen in America, and it’s very clear that he has never read Roe v. Wade. I’m pushing to have that be the law of the land. Your rights and freedoms should not depend on your zip code or the state in which you live. And while I said what he just said doesn’t happen in America.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as to that issue, what do you make of him talking about a referendum in the state of Wisconsin?

Anthony Chergosky:
So there is nothing about that in state law. There is no referendum process that state law provides for. But this is what we heard Ron Johnson talk about in the 2022 campaign. And it was a way for Ron Johnson to talk about the issue of abortion while then pivoting towards issues that may have been more favorable to him. We also saw the candidates trying to have two different debates here. Eric Hovde wanted to push Baldwin on if abortion should be allowed at all points of a pregnancy. While Baldwin wanted to push Hovde on if Roe versus Wade should be reinstated. So they were asking fundamentally different questions of one another and they were trying to strategically frame the issue in a way that played to their strengths.

Frederica Freyberg:
So Cook Political Report, you mentioned this just a minute ago, calls the Baldwin-Hovde race a toss-up, even though the most recent Marquette University Law School poll had her seven points up. What might be realigning this race?

Anthony Chergosky:
There is late money coming in to support Eric Hovde, and when we see a surge of late money, we always want to ask why that’s happening. The assumption might be that internal polls and internal analyses are suggesting that this is a closer race than the public polling might lead us to believe. So the late money, the rumors about internal polls have caused people to give this race a second look.

Frederica Freyberg:
How astronomical are these spending numbers that we’re seeing or money coming in numbers?

Anthony Chergosky:
Not quite as astronomical as some other states. States like Montana and Ohio have seen absolutely astronomical, as you said, sums of money. Wisconsin has been a bit of an afterthought, at least until recently. Now we are seeing more money come into the Wisconsin Senate race because the map is narrowing. Democrats sense that the Montana Senate race is going not in their direction. Meanwhile, Republicans are concerned by how their candidates in Nevada and Arizona are faring. So the map is narrowing. The range of competitive Senate races is narrowing, and that has brought new focus on this Wisconsin race.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because what are the stakes in this race for the makeup of the U.S. Senate?

Anthony Chergosky:
Right now, Republicans do have an advantage in the race for majority control of the U.S. Senate. Democrats have a Montana problem where their incumbent there, Jon Tester, seems to be in quite a bit of trouble. But there’s a big difference between a 50/50 Senate that goes towards the Republicans, if there’s a Republican tiebreaker for the VP, a 51/49, a 52/48. Each vote matters a lot in the politics of the U.S. Senate so it matters if Republicans get a one-seat majority, a two-seat majority, a three-seat majority, that makes a huge difference. And so they’d love to have this seat here in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Speaking of what we understand is the largest voting bloc in Wisconsin, and that is voters over the age of 65. An issue that was brought up in this debate, of course, was Social Security. And let’s take a listen to how the candidates answered a question about that.

Tammy Baldwin:
The Hovde plan that reverts and resets spending levels to levels from the last decade would cut Social Security by 28%, an average of $500 per month. That’s $6,000 per year. Talk about, you know, when people need money in their pockets. And why is he supporting the Hovde plan? Because he supports a $4 trillion tax giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, and he supports spending, just not for you.

Eric Hovde:
The one thing you have perfected in Washington is your ability to lie. I can’t even believe you have the ability to stand here and say something like that. Look, I believe we need to protect Social Security and keep it sacrosanct for everybody who’s on Social Security or getting ready to retire. If you want to know why Social Security is in trouble, it’s real simple. Because we’ve taken federal debt.

Frederica Freyberg:
How salient is the issue of Social Security here in Wisconsin?

Anthony Chergosky:
I think it’s enormously salient. And I say that because Social Security is always salient. It is a massive share of the federal budget, and it is understandably referred to as the third rail of American politics. If a politician tries to touch it, it doesn’t often work out well for them. So even though there have been headline grabbing issues related to immigration and the border and inflation, all important issues, understandably. But Social Security is a constant source of political intrigue in U.S. politics.

Frederica Freyberg:
Speaking of immigration, they did address that as well tonight. But as we listened to it, we thought that they were kind of saying the same things that we’ve heard.

Anthony Chergosky:
We heard familiar themes from both sides. We heard Hovde accuse Senator Baldwin of being weak on the border, of being unserious about the need for bolstering security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Meanwhile, we saw Baldwin go after Hovde on the issue of the Senate negotiations. The negotiated Senate immigration bill that ended up being tanked as President Trump intervened and told Republicans that he was not on board with that bill. So that has given Democrats a real talking point. And the discussion about immigration reflected the partisan divide that we’ve seen in races all across the country, including the presidential race. Familiar talking points, familiar themes on both sides for the immigration issue in the Baldwin-Hovde debate.

Frederica Freyberg:
As to Donald Trump, does he help Eric Hovde here or hurt him? And then on the flip side, is Kamala Harris helping or hurting Tammy Baldwin?

Anthony Chergosky:
Well, there’s been a lot of talk about how Senator Baldwin might be able to peel off a few of Donald Trump’s supporters, and we know that split ticket voting is quite rare nowadays. That cross-party voting, it just doesn’t happen that much. But in a state like Wisconsin, where the presidential election has been decided by about 20,000 votes the last two elections, a little split ticket voting, a little cross party voting here and there could make a big difference in this Senate race.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, another thing that came up in this debate was these attack ads that we’re seeing on both sides across the airwaves and the panel of debate questioners asked them about those. And let’s take a listen to what they said.

Tammy Baldwin:
Eric Hovde is lying. I think it’s really hard to say that an ad is false when you are hearing Eric Hovde in his own words. You’re seeing this with your eyes. I’m telling you things he has said. The context of that ad relating to farmers was he was doing an interview about why we could easily increase the retirement age to 72, because farmers didn’t take the physical toil they used to. They just largely ride around on tractors. I spend so much time with dairy farmers and I can tell you they are insulted by those words. And I stand by those.

Eric Hovde:
You claim I live in California and that’s where I am and I’m not a Wisconsinite, even though, as I said, I live in the neighborhood you grew up. You know, there’s such thing as a way to prove it. It’s called a utility bill.

Frederica Freyberg:
What did you think of that?

Anthony Chergosky:
Looking for that viral moment, Fred, a lot of people consume bits and pieces of debates. A lot of people certainly watched the whole thing. But for many others, they’re going to be watching the clips that they see on the news. The clips that they see online. And so it was wise of the Hovde campaign to try to get that memorable moment there that people might view as we go forward in the final days of this campaign.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is it like for you to be watching and analyzing Wisconsin’s election for both president and U.S. Senate when it is on such a razor’s edge?

Anthony Chergosky:
Well, I mean, the tough thing about analyzing Wisconsin elections is that anything could make the difference. Typically, as a political scientist, I’m skeptical about how any one aspect of the campaign might really shake up the electorate, how it might influence voters. Typically, campaigns have rather modest effects on how voters think through their choices, but modest effects can be the whole ballgame in a Wisconsin election, and that makes it enormously challenging, because if we’re thinking about a 20,000 vote margin, imagine all of the things that happen in the campaign that could cause 20,000 votes to shift one way or the other. That’s where we’re at in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so back to that seeking a viral moment kind of thing.

Anthony Chergosky:
Absolutely. And that has been a consistent theme of the Baldwin campaign that Hovde lives in California, that he’s more interested in California than Wisconsin. And so Hovde’s campaign here trying to flip the script on that, trying to create a memorable moment where they can counteract that talking point from the Baldwin campaign.

Frederica Freyberg:
With less than a minute left, in the final weeks of campaigns, what should folks in Wisconsin expect in terms of a total onslaught?

Anthony Chergosky:
Yes, the closing argument, and there aren’t many persuadable voters left. There weren’t that many to begin with, and there are even fewer now. So we are going to see the candidates try to figure out what does that 1%, 2%, 3% of voters who are still persuadable, what do they want? What will resonate with them and we’re going to see them give their best effort at trying to reach those voters.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, Anthony Chergosky, we really appreciate you coming down to join us tonight.

Anthony Chergosky:
Thank you.