Crucial Senate Race in Wisconsin Is Set Between Eric Hovde and Tammy Baldwin

Eric Hovde, a wealthy businessman, won the Republican nomination for Senate in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, setting up a key race this fall with Senator Tammy Baldwin, the Democratic incumbent.

The race was called with just 4 percent of the vote counted, with Mr. Hovde holding large leads on his challengers: Charles Barman, a construction superintendent, and Rejani Raveendran, a nurse and midwife studying at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Ms. Baldwin’s seat is one of more than a half-dozen held by Democrats that Republicans are targeting this year. To regain control of the Senate, Republicans need to flip just one or two — depending on whether the party wins the presidency — and they are almost guaranteed to pick up one seat in West Virginia, where Senator Joe Manchin III is not running for re-election.

Mr. Hovde, the multimillionaire founder of H Bancorp and the chief executive of a real estate development company, has had several false starts in his political career. He financed a failed Senate campaign in 2012 with $5.8 million from his personal fortune before ultimately losing the Republican primary. He later considered other runs for Senate and governor, but decided against them.

Mr. Hovde is one of several Republican Senate candidates this year who are in a position to self-fund their campaigns, allowing the party to devote more of its resources elsewhere. Mr. Hovde has so far pumped at least $13 million of his own money into the campaign.

He has presented his wealth as a positive, saying it means he doesn’t need “special-interest money” and can be more independent, and pledging to donate his Senate salary to charity if he is elected.

Ms. Baldwin, who was uncontested in the