Trump-Endorsed Senate Candidate Questions if Nursing Home Residents Are Alive Enough to Vote

Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Eric Hovde thinks people in nursing homes can’t vote on their own because — in his mind — they’re all at death’s doorstep.

During an April 5 interview on The Guy Benson Show, Hovde, a Republican running to unseat Democratic Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, claimed that it was suspicious that some nursing homes in Wisconsin had “100-percent voting” percentages.

“Well, if you’re in a nursing home, you only have five, six-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote and you had children, adult children showing up saying, ‘Who voted for my 85 or 90-year-old father or mother?’” Hovde told Benson.

Hovde, whose comments were first reported by Heartland Signal, is not entirely correct in his assessment of nursing home life expectancy. While it’s true that some residents die within months of entering assisted living, many live comfortably for years in long-term residential care, while others voluntarily leave nursing homes for a multitude of reasons, including a preference for in-home care.

Regardless of how long a person stays in a nursing home, the right to vote has no age-based expiration date. Wisconsin became a focal point for election conspiracies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, including through largely baseless claims that nursing home employees had fabricated or manipulated the votes of elderly patients.

Hovde, a banker and investor by trade, made an unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 2012, and announced his second attempt to win a seat in the higher chamber in February. Hovde has already drawn the ire of Wisconsinites after publicly coming out against the sale of alcohol — a bold stance if you’re trying to represent what is arguably the beer capital of America. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Hovde also waged a decadeslong pressure campaign to force the Silver Dollar Tavern, a Madison bar beloved by locals, to sell their building to him in order to demolish the entire block.

While Hovde has explicitly stated he does not believe the 2020 election was stolen, last month former President Donald Trump officially endorsed him during a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “I met Eric, and I’ve studied Eric and I — because we have to get it right,” Trump said.

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