What They’re Saying: Eric Hovde Caught Using Company Senior Executives in Misleading Campaign Ad

MADISON, Wis. — On Wednesday, TMJ4 broke the news that Eric Hovde ran an ad that exclusively featured senior employees of his own company, despite Hovde trying to pass them off as regular, hard-working Wisconsinites. This news comes as Hovde faces increasing scrutiny for repeatedly insulting working Wisconsinites and continues to receive questions about his weak ties to Wisconsin, something he can’t even seem to get straight himself. 

See below for what Wisconsinites are seeing and reading about Hovde’s failure to get Wisconsinites not on his payroll to support him: 

TMJ4: ‘I mute them all’: Misleading ads in Wisconsin Senate race

• 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.

• “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.

Washington Examiner: Eric Hovde launches campaign ad featuring his company executives without disclosure

• The video, called “Crazy Spending,” shows two vice presidents and a director from Hovde Properties seated in a bar, according to Milwaukee’s NBC affiliate TMJ 4 News. The men are not identified at any point and are depicted as typical Wisconsin voters. 

• “I think it’s a little bit deceptive to make it appear as though these are regular folks and not employees,” said Mike Wagner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• “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,” Arik Wolk, rapid response director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, told the Washington Examiner.