Wisconsin Senate Forecast tossup

Last Updated: Tuesday, November 5 at 12:18 PM EST

Incumbent two-term Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, re-elected in 2018 by an 11% margin, is seeking a third term this November. She’s likely to face bank owner and former U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, who has received endorsements from Donald Trump and most notable Republican Wisconsin officials. Early polls show Baldwin with a consistent advantage. Although no Republican has won this Class I Senate seat since 1952, the race is considered highly competitive given Wisconsin's nearly even partisan lean and the competitive nature of its recent presidential races. Four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin were decided by less than 1%: in 2016, Donald Trump narrowly won the state by 0.77% in his surprise sweep of the Midwest and Rust Belt, while in 2020, Joe Biden flipped Wisconsin back to blue by an even narrower margin of 0.63%. Both parties have seen success in the state in recent years; Republicans control both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature and hold a supermajority in the state's U.S. House delegation, as well as the state's other Senate seat. However, Democrats have also achieved success in statewide races, including in 2022, when incumbent Governor Tony Evers overperformed expectations and won re-election to a second term, despite polls that had shown his Republican challenger as the slight favorite.