Trump-Endorsed Wisconsin Senate Candidate Eric Hovde Faces Backlash After Suggesting Nursing Home Residents Aren’t Qualified To Vote

Earlier this month, Eric Hovde, the Wisconsin Senate candidate endorsed by Donald Trump, suggested that many senior citizens in nursing homes are not qualified to vote.

“We had nursing homes where the sheriff of Racine investigated, where you had 100% voting in nursing homes,” Hovde said of the 2020 election during an interview on the Guy Benson Show. “Well, if you’re in a nursing home, you only have five, six months life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote. And you have children, adult children showing up that said, who voted for my 85- or 90-year-old father or mother?”

The Wisconsin Senate Candidate’s campaign spokesman said he did not mean to imply that elderly people should not vote.

“In no manner did Eric Hovde suggest that elderly people should not vote,” Hovde spokesman Ben Voelkel said in a statement. “He was referring to specific cases in Racine Co. where family members raised concerns about their loved ones voting.”

Hovde’s opponent, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, quickly pounced on the gaffe. 

Baldwin spokesman Andrew Mamo said, “Between these comments and his promises to cut Social Security and raise the retirement age, Eric Hovde continues to show that he does not respect Wisconsinites, understand our struggles, or share our values.” 

Hovde often has told reporters that his campaign would not re-run the 2020 presidential election. Although he does not believe it was stolen, he feels changes are required to restore confidence in elections.

How residents of Wisconsin nursing homes voted during the 2020 election was a central focus of Republicans who questioned the outcome of the presidential contest, even though recounts, an independent audit and a report from a conservative group confirmed that Joe Biden beat Trump by over 20,000 votes in the state.

To protect their residents from the coronavirus, many Wisconsin nursing homes barred all outside visitors, which included the special voting deputies who usually hold their ballots. The Wisconsin Elections Board chose to send mail ballots instead.

Trump and his allies portrayed this decision as evidence of massive fraud. The best evidence they could come up with was a ballot cast by one resident of the Ridgewood Care Facility in Racine County who was already declared incompetent by a judge in Wisconsin.

Voting in nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic came up as a flashpoint in Republicans’ mission to overhaul how elections are conducted in Wisconsin as the former president keeps falsely claiming that his 2020 election loss was caused by widespread cheating. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission told clerks to ignore that law in 2020 and send absentee ballots to nursing home residents since the facilities had not accepted visitors during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The commission restored its guidance to send special voting deputies to nursing homes once more after the Covid-19 pandemic subsided in 2021.

In early April, the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel ruled that former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark had committed ethical violations by promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

According to state law, municipal clerks must dispatch poll workers known as special voting deputies to nursing homes to help residents fill out ballots.