Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
No.
A TV ad misstated what Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde said about older voters.
Hovde is running in the November 2024 election against U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.
In an April interview, Hovde described what he claimed were voting irregularities involving Wisconsin nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election. A partisan investigation found no evidence of malicious intent behind a few cases of mentally incompetent people voting.
Hovde said: “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.”
In fact, many people in nursing homes can and do vote, oftentimes with assistance.
But in a WinSenate ad posted May 25, the narrator claimed that Hovde said “most seniors shouldn’t vote.” That’s not what he said.
WinSenate, a liberal super PAC, has spent $3.76 million attacking Hovde, according to Open Secrets.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
YouTube: Anti-Hovde ad
IHeart: Pro-Terrorism Mob at Major American University – Guy Benson Show
Open Secrets: WinSenate PAC Recipients, 2024
Washington Post: Democratic Senate group reserves $239 million in ads to defend seats in seven states
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
