WisDems: Eric Hovde caught using senior company executives in misleading campaign ad

MADISON, Wis. — On Wednesday, TMJ4 reported that Eric Hovde aired a commercial exclusively featuring senior employees of his own company, although Hovde attempted to pass them off as regular, hard-working Wisconsinites.. This news comes as Hovde faces increasing scrutiny for repeatedly insulting Wisconsin workers and continues to receive questions about his weak ties to Wisconsin, which he can’t even begin to understand himself.

See below what Wisconsinites are seeing and reading about Hovde’s failure to get Wisconsinites off his payroll to support him:

TMJ4: ‘I Cut Them All’: Misleading Ads in Wisconsin Senate Race

• Eric Hovde, the Republican candidate in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, released a campaign ad featuring exclusively top executives from his real estate company — without revealing their relationship to him.
• “I can’t think of an example where three people who are sort of high-ups in a candidate’s company are presented as regular people talking about the campaign,” said Mike Wagner, a professor at UW-Madison who studies political communications.

Washington Examiner: Eric Hovde launches campaign ad featuring his company’s executives without disclosure

• The video, titled “Crazy Sending,” shows two vice presidents and a director of Hovde Properties sitting at a bar, according to Milwaukee NBC affiliate TMJ 4 News. The men are not identified at any time and are described as typical Wisconsin voters.
• “I think it’s a little misleading to make it seem like these are regular people and not employees,” said Mike Wagner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• “The only Wisconsinites who support Eric Hovde are those on his payroll. Maybe if Hovde stopped insulting Wisconsinites so much and spent time in Wisconsin rather than his megamansion in Laguna Beach, California, he could actually find Wisconsinites who aren’t on his payroll to be featured in his announcement,” Arik Wolk, rapid response director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told the Washington Examiner.