Republican Eric Hovde Invested Millions In Companies That Outsourced Jobs From Wisconsin

As both a fund manager and an individual investor, Eric Hovde, the Republican Senate nominee in Wisconsin, put millions of dollars into three companies that shipped jobs out of Wisconsin in favor of cheaper locales.

Hovde, a co-founder and former CEO of the asset management firm Hovde Capital Advisors, is challenging Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) in November. A win for him would help Republicans, who are in a strong position to flip several other Democratic seats, take control of the upper chamber.

In Hovde’s quest to win in a state where manufacturing jobs remain a critical, if greatly diminished , part of the economy, he has spoken wistfully about the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs to foreign countries with cheaper labor and lower regulatory standards.

HuffPost obtained audio of Hovde’s remarks on the topic at a luncheon hosted by the Republican Women of Dane County in September 2023.

“E conomically, over the last 20 years, real wages have fallen for most Americans. Middle class and working class are being hammered,” Hovde says in the audio clip. “Whole industries over the last 20 years have moved away to China, to India, to Mexico, all over the globe.”

But prior to entering politics, Hovde invested millions of dollars in firms that laid off hundreds of Wisconsin workers, moving production to Southern states with cheaper labor costs and, in one case, to Mexico.

At the end of 2008, Hovde Capital reported an investment of over $15.2 million in NCR Corp., which makes ATMs, according to a disclosure Hovde Capital made to the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time.

In January 2009, NCR announced it would close a manufacturing plant in Viroqua, Wisconsin, laying off 81 employees. The company moved production to