Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, fended off a stiff challenge from Republican Eric Hovde, an affluent banker, to win a third term.
Ms. Baldwin, a pathbreaking, openly gay lawmaker, had opened a wide lead on Mr. Hovde this year by painting him as a rich, out-of-state interloper with a mansion in California and a penchant for insulting older Wisconsinites, farmers, even the overweight.
But Mr. Hovde and national Republicans fought back with a blizzard of late attack ads, including one that overtly highlighted her sexuality while accusing her of abandoning Wisconsin for the high life of New York and Washington, D.C. As the presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump reached a statistical tie in Wisconsin, the Senate contest tightened considerably. Political prognosticators who had said the race leaned Democratic for much of the year moved it to a tossup in the closing weeks.
But in the past few election cycles, incumbency has proved powerful in Wisconsin regardless of party. Two years ago, both the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, and its conservative Republican senator, Ron Johnson, narrowly won re-election. And last year, Democrats seemed to gain an edge. With abortion driving their energy, the state easily elected a progressive judge to the Wisconsin supreme court, tipping the balance of power on the state’s high court.
With Republican states increasingly out of reach for Democratic Senate candidates, securing Ms. Baldwin’s re-election was critical for Democrats who face institutional disadvantages in a chamber where the smallest Republican states, like Wyoming and North Dakota, have the same number of senators as the largest Democratic states, like California and New York.
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