In Wisconsin Senate Race, Voters Will Pick Between Two Candidates With Widely Differing Climate Views

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Democrats kicked off their national convention in Chicago Monday. But today, Vice President Kamala Harris will be 80 miles north, in Milwaukee, as she makes her third visit to Wisconsin since becoming the Democratic presidential candidate last month.

While Wisconsin has often been a key pathway to the White House, it could play an even bigger role than usual this November as Democrats fight to keep their slim majority in the Senate. The elected representatives Wisconsinites choose this year could have major policy implications not just for the state but nationwide, including in the fight to slow climate change.

That’s because Wisconsin is one of seven battleground states where Democrats hope to hold onto their Senate seats in ultra-competitive races. (The other six are Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania.) If Democrats lose just one of those states, it could set up a divided and gridlocked government even if they retain the White House.

If Democrats lose both the White House and the Senate, that could also mean the reversal of hard fought gains on pro-climate policy—namely, the hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits via the Inflation Reduction Act, which former President Donald Trump vowed to repeal if he’s elected.

“We are the battleground state,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin declared during a July rally for Harris in Milwaukee.

Baldwin, a Democrat seeking her third term, faces off against businessman and GOP challenger Eric Hovde in one of the more closely watched Senate races this year. Hovde, a Madison native who won the endorsements of the Wisconsin Republican congressional delegation and former President Donald Trump, easily took the Republican nomination in Wisconsin’s primary last week, defeating two other GOP challengers. Baldwin ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and is favored in several national polls to win.

Wisconsinites will now choose between two candidates with widely differing views on climate policy. 

Baldwin has long advocated for taking swift and decisive action to slow the pace of global warming, warning her colleagues on the Senate floor as far back as 2015 that “climate change will be costly to our economy and to our very way of life.” Hovde, on the other hand, recently called the IRA’s clean energy tax credits a “tax scheme” and “corporate welfare.”

Baldwin has largely backed up her words with her congressional voting record, which the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental advocacy group, rated as being “pro-environment” 97 percent of the time. She also received the Climate Action Campaign’s  “Climate Change-Maker” award last year for “her leadership in securing key federal investments through the Inflation Reduction Act in clean energy jobs, energy efficiency, electric buses, green spaces and coastal resilience.”

Critics have accused Hovde, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2012, of flip flopping and hypocrisy regarding his environmental stances. He vehemently denounced all clean energy subsidies during his 2012 campaign, but changed his mind regarding solar energy in 2021, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

As the CEO of Utah-based Sunwest Bank, Hovde launched a new solar financing division in 2022 and later committed to funding more than $200 million in commercial solar projects annually, the Journal Sentinel report said, but he remains dubious about providing tax credits for other forms of green energy, such as wind turbines and electric vehicles.

“I believe in green energy,” Hovde said last year during his speech at Sunwest Bank’s annual economic forum. “But to think we are going to move an economy this size—any economy—from its existing energy source in the matter of a decade, you are smoking crack cocaine.”

This year, Hovde has continued to campaign against federal tax credits in the IRA for electric vehicles while personally making millions of dollars from investments in EV companies that receive funding from that legislation, HuffPost reported. According to financial disclosures reviewed by HuffPost, Hovde earned as much as $5.26 million in capital gains last year from investments in Rivian, Lucid Motors, Nikola Corp. and other EV manufacturers.

Inside Climate News reached out to the Hovde campaign for comment on the Journal Sentinel and HuffPost articles but has yet to receive a response. Hovde told the Journal Sentinel it was unfair to say he has flip-flopped on green energy, explaining the economics for solar has changed since 2012.

While it’s not uncommon for lawmakers to change their minds or hold seemingly contradictory political stances, Hovde’s approach to talking about climate change and the solutions aimed at slowing it may not work in his favor, said Dietram Scheufele, a political scientist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Life Sciences Communication department.

Hovde’s rancorous campaign language—as well as allied political action committees that frame the IRA as a “radical agenda” in attack ads—comes off as outdated, Scheufele said, and likely doesn’t sit well with the state’s moderate and independent voters, who largely believe in human-made climate change and want to see something done about it. 

“I think those independents will be crucially important, and they will care about the economics of climate change,” he said. “They will also care about how it affects their communities and their lakefront properties and all these other things.”

Wisconsin is one of several Midwestern states that saw a major decline in outdoor recreation revenue this year following a historically mild winter with little snowfall. Wisconsin has also seen a sharp rise in clean energy development in recent years in part because of the support of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who voters elected into office in 2019 and re-elected last year—one sign, climate advocates say, that Wisconsin isn’t as red as it used to be.

“I think those independents will be crucially important, and they will care about the economics of climate change.”

“What will be successful in Wisconsin’s Senate race is something that’s much more middle of the road,” Scheufele said. “That means not denying the science of climate change, but at the same time looking for adaptation and mitigation strategies that resonate with voters on both sides of the political aisle.”

Baldwin is currently favored to win the race, with one recent poll finding the incumbent leading Hovde by seven percentage points among registered voters. Other polls have shown Baldwin leading by as much as nine points, and some political analysts expect Harris’ Tuesday visit to give Baldwin an extra boost.

While climate change may not be a focal point of Wisconsin’s Senate race, Scheufele said, it may still play a role in determining its outcome. Making climate change a top campaign priority typically doesn’t give a candidate a bump in the polls, he said, but he has seen politicians lose because of their views on the matter.

“Climate change will be one of those issues that you can’t really win with but you can lose on,” he said. “Taking an unreasonable or seemingly outdated position … can do real damage to a campaign.”