BREAKING: Eric Hovde Caught Using Company Senior Executives in Campaign Ad Highlighting Working Wisconsinites
Only Wisconsinites who support Hovde also have their paychecks signed by Hovde
MADISON, Wis. — Last night, a breaking news report from TMJ4 exposed Eric Hovde for running an ad that exclusively features senior employees of his own company, despite Hovde trying to pass them off as the regular, hard-working Wisconsinites that Eric Hovde insults almost every day.
This embarrassment of an ad comes as Hovde, three-time winner of Orange County, CA’s most influential person, continues to face questions about his weak ties to Wisconsin, something he can’t even seem to get straight himself.
“The only Wisconsinites who support Eric Hovde are the ones on his payroll. Maybe if Hovde stopped insulting Wisconsinites so much and actually spent time in Wisconsin instead of in his megamansion in Laguna Beach, California, he could actually find some Wisconsinites not on his payroll to be in his ad,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Rapid Response Director Arik Wolk.
-
Eric Hovde, the Republican candidate in Wisconsin’s competitive U.S. Senate race, has aired a campaign ad exclusively featuring senior employees of his real estate company – without disclosing their relationship to him.
-
The ad comes as political messaging floods the airwaves in battleground Wisconsin ahead of the 2024 election. In the race between Hovde and incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, tens of millions of dollars will be spent to determine the outcome.
-
In Hovde’s recent ad, it’s more than just the messaging that could be seen as misleading. The 30-second video, entitled “Crazy Spending,” shows two vice presidents and a director from Hovde Properties seated in a bar, criticizing liberal policies on a range of issues from transgender athletes to government spending. None of the three men are identified at any point.
-
“I can’t think of an example where three people who are kind of higher-ups in a candidate’s company are featured as regular people shooting the breeze about the campaign,” said Mike Wagner, a UW-Madison professor who studies political communications.
-
According to Wagner, it’s the buildup of political advertisements that can make a difference by setting the key issues in a race or prompting voters to do their own research on a candidate. He says it’s not uncommon for candidates to use supporters or even paid actors to score those points (although paid actors are usually disclosed in the fine print).
-
“Now I suppose if you’re Eric Hovde, you can say, ‘It’s me and my coworkers getting a beer after work and I’m bringing them beer, and what’s peculiar about that?’ But I think it’s a little bit deceptive to make it appear as though these are regular folks and not employees,” Wagner said.
-
The state Democratic Party brought the advertisement to TMJ4/NBC26’s attention. Baldwin’s campaign and other Democrats have focused their attacks on branding Hovde as an out-of-state and out-of-touch multimillionaire because he owns a $7 million home in California and is CEO of California-based Sunwest Bank.
-
TMJ4/NBC26 went to Hovde Properties’ headquarters but was denied a request to speak to the three men who appeared in the advertisement.
-
The race in Wisconsin is one of nearly two dozen that Democrats must win nationally if they want to keep their slim majority in the Senate.
