MADISON, Wis. — Last Friday, the Wisconsin State Journal highlighted how California bank owner Eric Hovde demeaned both men and women in Wisconsin. Following his comment that he believes women “spend too much time focused on Hollywood,” he insulted Wisconsin men, saying they’re too focused on “sports” and “fantasy sports” to be civically engaged.
“Eric Hovde disparages Wisconsinites every time he opens his mouth. Men or women, old or young, Hovde makes sure no one escapes his insults,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Rapid Response Director Arik Wolk.
Read more below:
By: Mitchell Schmidt
An ad airing on Wisconsin TVs from U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s campaign targets her Republican challenger, Madison business owner Eric Hovde, for comments he made in an eight-year-old interview in which he appears to criticize women as “deplorable” and only interested in Hollywood celebrities.
The ad is the latest in a flurry of TV spots in the race leading up to the November election, in which Hovde is looking to unseat Baldwin as she pursues a third term in office.
The ad, titled “My Day,” starts off with scenes of women preparing for a busy day of work and getting their children to school, before shifting to Hovde, with one woman saying he “thinks all women care about is Hollywood.”
The ad then cuts to a clip from Hovde’s 2016 interview with conservative Green Bay talk show host Jerry Bader.
The ad then focuses on Hovde’s past comments in support of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and claims that the Republican would vote in support of a federal law banning abortion.
“Eric Hovde must think he knows better than us,” one woman in the ad says.
“What is wrong with this guy?” another adds.
So what’s the rest of the story?
In the original interview with Bader, Hovde was expressing frustration with what he sees as a lack of civic engagement, broadly, in the country.
“Most of the country, sadly, doesn’t even know what the heck is going on,” Hovde says in the interview. “They can’t even tell you when our country was founded, who the vice president (is), how many senators there are. It’s just deplorable how low people are keeping themselves informed. I like to say, sadly, with, you know, females they spend too much time focused on what’s going on in Hollywood, and with males they engross themselves too much in sports and now it’s not just sports, it’s fantasy sports.”
So while Hovde did lean in with a sexist trope about women, he was being an equal-opportunity offender by also repeating a stereotype about men as only interested in sports in complaining that neither group was paying enough attention to politics.Asked about the selective editing of Hovde’s comments, Baldwin’s campaign spokesperson Andrew Mamo stood by the ad, noting that, “if anything, we didn’t have time to fully show how mean (Hovde) was being to all people, not just women.”
