Baldwin, Hovde tied in Wisconsin Senate race polling

Incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and her Republican challenger Eric Hovde are neck and neck in the Wisconsin Senate race, a new poll shows.

The survey, released Thursday from Emerson College Polling/RealClearWorld, found Baldwin and Hovde each received 48 percent support from likely voters in the Badger State. Another 3 percent said they would choose someone else, while under 1 percent said they were still undecided, less than two weeks from the election.

Wisconsin voters ranked the economy, 41.5 percent, as the most important issue going into November. Threats to democracy, 16.8 percent, abortion access, 9.7 percent, and immigration, 9 percent, followed behind, according to the survey.

These were key topics at the recent debate between the Senate hopefuls. Hovde specifically pointed to immigration as a key priority if he's elected.

“We don’t know how many have come in, but it’s flooded our streets with fentanyl,” Hovde said at the Oct. 18 forum, while criticizing the Biden administration for rising border crossings. “We have criminals that have entered into our country, and it’s created a humanitarian crisis.”

However, Baldwin pushed back, blaming the rise in immigrants on Republicans after killing a bipartisan border bill earlier this year.

“It would have added 1,500 new border patrol agents to our southern border, and had it passed in this spring, they would be there now,” she replied.

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ's aggregate of polls in the state show Baldwin with a 1.1-point lead over Hovde — 48.2 percent to 47.1 percent.

The Emerson/RealClearWord survey was conducted Oct. 21-22 with 800 likely voters in the battleground state. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.