Eric Hovde, the Republican Senate candidate in Wisconsin, has described himself as an “outsider” and a self-made entrepreneur, but an examination of his business dealings shows that Hovde benefited from insider connections at the highest levels of political power in Washington, D.C.
In 1987, a year after graduating from college, Hovde and his father, Donald Hovde, launched Hovde Financial. And the elder Hovde had connections at the highest level of American politics.
Donald Hovde served as undersecretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Ronald Reagan, and in 1983, Reagan nominated him to serve as a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. The board, which existed from 1932 to 1989, governed federal banks that provide liquidity to other financial institutions. Reporting in a 1986 edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times described Donald Hovde as having a “position of considerable power.”
By 1988, Donald Hovde began using his Washington connections. He hired former regulators from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. to work at Hovde Financial, according to a report in American Banker magazine.
Eric Hovde referred to his father’s position of power in a March 2024 interview that aired on the radio station WCLO.
“Moved out to Washington, D.C., for a bit because my father was in the Reagan administration, highest ranking official in the Reagan administration,” Hovde told the host.
Hovde Financial was a success and eventually led to Eric Hovde acquiring a stake in Sunwest Bank, where he became CEO and majority shareholder by 2006.
According to his official financial disclosure filings, Eric Hovde is worth anywhere from $195 to $564 million, which would make him among the wealthiest senators if his campaign is successful. That wealth has roots in his family connections and his father’s status, which does not quite fit the self-made image that Hovde has portrayed.
The revelations about Hovde echo recently released information about Sam Brown, the Republican candidate in the Nevada Senate race. Brown has referred to himself as a “small town” guy from the working class, but his family has an ownership stake in the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals, a franchise with an estimated worth of $4 billion.
Hovde’s wealth and how he acquired it also stand in contrast to his views on middle-class finances. In a discussion with a voter at a Wisconsin fair in July, Hovde said that he supports raising the eligibility age for Social Security for younger people. Hovde also called the provision of the Affordable Care Act that allows young people to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26 “stupid.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Hovde’s Democratic opponent, recently reaffirmed her support for the social safety net in a speech delivered to the Democratic Party’s presidential convention.
“So when I work to protect Medicare and Social Security, I do it with a personal knowledge of what those big programs meant in small but deeply meaningful ways to my grandparents. And I know what they mean for your parents and grandparents,” Baldwin said.
