This Senate Race Was Never Meant to Be Close. Now Dems Are Freaking Out.

Matt Vespa | October 04, 2024 12:30 PM

It’s a U.S. Senate race that was never meant to be a source of panic for Democrats. Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin easily cruised to re-election in 2018, but this year is different. Some of the polls have Baldwin up at least seven points. Those turn out to be outliers. It’s a tight race between Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde, with the latest round of internal polling sending Baldwin’s camp into five-alarm fire territory (via Axios) [emphasis mine]:

Sen. Tammy Baldwin's (D-Wis.) lead in both public and internal polls has deteriorated, and Republicans are flooding the state with cash to pull off the upset.
Baldwin leads by just two points in internal Democratic polling, a source familiar with the campaign told Axios. That is much closer than what public polling has shown for months.
Democrats are on pace to be outspent by Republicans in the state every week until Election Day, with an infusion of around $20 million from GOP sources.
The big picture: A Baldwin loss to Republican Eric Hovde would probably doom any chance Democrats have of holding on to their Senate majority.
Montana's trouble for Democrats. Ohio and Michigan are toss-ups.
But Wisconsin is supposed to be like Nevada and Arizona — a tight but safe-ish race, as long as nothing goes awry.
Multiple Democratic sources told Axios there are "alarm bells" ringing in the state, arguing the race is much tighter than what public polling has shown.
A national Democratic strategist working on Senate campaigns pointed specifically to a recent poll from Marquette University, which showed Baldwin with a six-point lead. The race, the strategist said, is much closer than that.