Sen. Tammy Baldwin has historically been able to win over a kind of voter that’s proven elusive for Democrats: the “Trump-Tammy” ticket splitter.
The last time Baldwin was up for reelection was in 2018 when Donald Trump was already in office. Not only did Baldwin secure a near-11-point victory, but she’s repeatedly won Republican and rural counties since coming into statewide office, the kind Democrats nationwide have shed. Where she doesn’t win, she typically loses by smaller margins than other statewide Democrats. But this year, Baldwin will share the ticket with Trump for the first time, making the pitch that Trump voters should also support a senator with a very liberal track record more difficult.
“In ’18, Trump … is sort of the bogeyman for Democratic criticism. But now with him on the ballot, presidential and Senate are going to be more or less next to each other … and that will tend to produce more consistent party voting,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll.
Some polls have shown a tightening race, like a Cook Political Report survey with Baldwin only up by 2 points, 49-47, a dramatic drop from a 7-point lead this summer. Perhaps more concerning for Democrats was that the Harris-Trump matchup showed similar numbers: Strategists widely expected Baldwin to run ahead of Harris.
A Marquette Law release conducted around the same time has Baldwin up 7 points on her Republican opponent Eric Hovde, 53-46, and Harris up 4 on Trump, 52-48, but still showed some tightening that Franklin, who runs the poll, said is “part of the natural consequence of partisans coming home to their party.”
“Fewer Republicans are defecting from Trump at the presidential level, but there are also fewer defecting from the Republicans at the Senate level,” Franklin said. There’s still a little bit of crossover voting, about 3 points that Baldwin has that Harris doesn’t, which “that’s not nothing, but on the other hand, it is considerably smaller than what it was in the spring.”
Baldwin is seemingly aware of the uphill climb she has ahead of her, acknowledging the pool of potential crossover voters has shrunk: She told The New York Times this month that “there’s a lot of split-ticket voters. I do think that that has diminished … but I know some Trump-Tammy voters.”
Trump, for his part, is doing what he can to make sure the Trump-Tammy voter is a thing of the past. He’s called Baldwin “a radical left senator” who “doesn’t do anything for Wisconsin.” Hovde touts his Trump endorsement as much as he can. Hovde has appeared at Trump rallies (where Trump called Baldwin “no good” and said she “votes the party line”) and cut videos highlighting Trump’s negative comments on Baldwin.
In late September, Hovde took a more direct hit to the Trump-Tammy Wisconsinite, releasing a video that featured a clip of Baldwin calling Trump “one of the most offensive, hateful, unacceptable presidential candidates we’ve ever had. So what does that say about the people that support him?”
“Tammy Baldwin hates Trump and Trump voters,” the narrator says.
“Obviously, it’s not a great quote, especially for someone who I think is generally a pretty talented speaker,” a Democratic strategist in the state said.
But, the strategist said, they weren’t worried the video would convince many ticket splitters to vote against Baldwin.
“I don’t think the Trump-Tammy voters are the die-hard type Trump voters that are going to see this and be upset. I think those types [of die-hard Trump voters] tend to probably already be voting for Eric Hovde,” the strategist added.
The Baldwin campaign said the video was from June 2016 — shortly after Trump became the presumptive nominee. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin confirmed the comments were made at one of their events.
“This was when it was far from certain that Trump would be the standard-bearer for the Republican Party,” the Baldwin campaign said in a statement. “To characterize this as Tammy’s thoughts on Republican voters as Hovde is trying to do is just not true.”
Republicans see the comments as a salient and direct attack on Trump voters — the ones who, it’s no secret, occasionally cast their ballots for Baldwin.
“Sen. Baldwin’s disrespectful and dangerous comments make clear she hates Trump and Trump supporters,” Hovde campaign spokesperson Zach Bannon said in a statement.
“Tammy Baldwin has regularly bashed the more than 1.6 million Wisconsinites who voted for President Trump as immoral,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Tate Mitchell said in a statement.
Even as the race has tightened, Democrats point to the voters who simultaneously elected Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2022 as assurance that the crossover voter still exists in Wisconsin, though obviously, turnout is different in a presidential election year.
“There are a noninsignificant amount of voters in Wisconsin who are willing to bubble in a Democrat and then a Republican or vice versa,” they said.
Plenty of Democratic focus has been on, as the strategist called it, “the nonpartisan issue of Hovde being a jerk.” Attack lines include Hovde’s businesses and home in California, to paint him as a non-Wisconsinite, or flubs like saying most nursing home residents are not “at a point to vote,” comments on single mothers or criticisms of young people.
“We are proud to highlight the difference in this race between Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde. While Tammy Baldwin is fighting for our farmers, protecting our made-in-Wisconsin economy, and taking on the fentanyl crisis, Eric Hovde continues to make himself unacceptable to Wisconsin voters with his California ties, endless string of insulting comments and extreme right-wing agenda,” Arik Wolk, Rapid Response director for DPW, said.
Baldwin’s also talking about rural issues, like “Made in Wisconsin” priorities or agriculture — securing the Wisconsin Farm Bureau’s first statewide endorsement for a Democrat in two decades. The issues might feel more traditionally Republican, but they’re not exactly hot-button divisive topics either.
The Trump-Tammy voters are “not showing up at Election Day thinking, ‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do.’ They’ve actually thought about it and been like, ‘Yeah, I’m the kind of independent who looks at each race individually and makes up my mind,’” another Democratic operative in the state said. “They’ve probably crossed over before, and it makes sense that we can get them to do it again.”
—
Nuha Dolby is a reporter at NOTUS and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.