Eric Hovde attacks Tammy Baldwin on fentanyl crisis, questions use of ballot drop boxes

MADISON – Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Eric Hovde on Tuesday accused Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of failing to address the fentanyl crisis in Wisconsin and argued she only spends time in the state during campaign season.

"She seems to only come back into the state when it's time for election, and does staged events and doesn't want to talk about her record," Hovde said outside of the Shorewood Hills Village Hall shortly after casting his vote in the primary.

"I have never seen such a disingenuous campaign making up lies, not only about me, taking things completely out of context, but also even embellishing her record and what she's done, like talking about fentanyl and how she's done something about the fentanyl crisis," Hovde told reporters. "She has done absolutely nothing."

Baldwin's campaign countered that the two-term senator "has spent her career fighting for Wisconsin families and showing up for our communities."

"Meanwhile, Eric Hovde has spent the majority of his adult life living anywhere but Wisconsin. There's a reason he's been named one of Orange County, California's most influential people three times," Baldwin campaign spokesman Andrew Mamo said in a statement.

Baldwin, who maintained a lead over Hovde in a Marquette University Law School poll release last week, has both written and co-sponsored bills over the last several years targeting fentanyl.

In 2019, she introduced a bill called The Search Now, Inspect for Fentanyl (SNIFF) Act, which would have required the U.S. Postal Service to enter into an agreement with U.S. Customs and Border Control to train employees on how to identify illicit packages. The bill did not make it out of the Senate in the 2019-20 session.

At that time, Baldwin called for stronger tools to protect Americans from fentanyl, and stop the shipping of the substance into the country.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is used as a pain medication with a doctor's prescription. But it is also made illegally, and China has been identified as a primary source for the drug.

Baldwin has kept a focus on fentanyl and other opioids, and especially on the impact the drugs are having on communities and families. She first started sharing her own experience growing up with a mother addicted to prescription drugs during her 2018 campaign.

Earlier this year, she supported the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which aims to stop the flow of the drugs into the country by choking off the income source of those who traffic it.

"The fight against the opioid epidemic is personal for Tammy and that's why she has a proven track record of fighting to strengthen our border and stop illegal drugs like fentanyl," Mamo said in a statement. "While Tammy voted to pass the strongest bipartisan border bill to date that would crack down on the Chinese fentanyl suppliers and Mexican fentanyl traffickers, Eric Hovde said he would have voted against that bill because he is more interested in playing politics with this issue than addressing the problem."

Eric Hovde expresses doubts about the use of ballot drop boxes

Hovde also expressed worry over the use of drop boxes in this year's elections, after the Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated their use. Drop boxes served a purpose during the COVID pandemic, he said, but today there is no longer a pandemic to be concerned about, meaning walking into a polling place and casting a vote should be easy.

Drop boxes had been used since the 1980s or 1990s in Wisconsin and other states, but they exploded in popularity during the pandemic to help voters cast ballots while limiting interaction with other people.

"I hope people are watching drop boxes, because it just, you know, look, we got to get back in creating confidence in our election process," he said. "We've got to create confidence for everybody in this country and in our state, that they feel whoever wins won the election, and whatever we can do to support that and bring that confidence, I think is best for the state of Wisconsin."

Asked for his thoughts on a local election on his ballot, for Dane County executive, Hovde said he's been too busy with his own campaign to focus on down-ballot races. He did, however, share that he voted in favor of two statewide referendum questions that would require the state's governor to get legislative approval to spend federal money.

Hovde brushed off questions about Democratic enthusiasm rising following President Joe Biden's exit from the race to be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, arguing that people in the center of the political spectrum will be motivated by economic stress when they vote.

"I think people want to take the country in a different direction," he said.

Laura Schulte can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura. Jessie Opoien can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @jessieopie.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Eric Hovde attacks Baldwin on fentanyl, questions ballot drop boxes