FOND du LAC, Wis. — A month ago, many people in this state presumed that Tommy G. Thompson — still a household name here after serving an unprecedented four terms as governor — had a lock on the Republican nomination for the Senate.
Not anymore.
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Wisconsin, which has seen more than its share of bare-knuckle politics over the past year, is the setting of an increasingly bitter three-way GOP Senate primary fight whose outcome later this month is anyone’s guess.
The race has been upended by the late entry of Eric Hovde, 48, a banker, investor and hedge-fund manager who had not lived in the state for 24 years until moving back from Washington, D.C., in 2011. Although Thompson likes to point out that Hovde’s first vote for U.S. senator will be the one he casts for himself, the political newcomer has spent more than $4 million of his own money on advertising that portrays him as a fresh face with business expertise.
That created a possible opening for former congressman Mark Neumann, who also has benefited from the backing of national conservative leaders and from $700,000 in attack ads against Thompson and Hovde by the conservative group Club for Growth.
The anti-tax organization is hoping for a repeat of what happened this week in Texas, where the group’s ads were a significant factor in the GOP primary victory of Ted Cruz over the better-known, better-funded longtime Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
“It’s been tough. I’ve been outspent 10 to one, mostly with negative ads,” Thompson said in an interview Wednesday. “But I’m still standing, and I'm still leading.”
That is debatable. Polling over the past few weeks has shown that what was once an expected coronation has turned into a free-for-all, with a large portion of voters remaining undecided. A survey released Tuesday by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found that the three leading contenders are virtually tied.
Although PPP uses an automated technique that many other pollsters do not regard as reliable, its result underscores a trend that other political analysts are sensing as well.
“I find it credible and plausible” that the race is now a dead heat, said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee who runs a polling operation and will be going into the field this week.
In July, Marquette’s polling showed Thompson with a double-digit lead, although it found evidence that Hovde was gaining ground.
That was largely the result of the fact that his advertising had been on the air for weeks, with no response from the Thompson or Neumann camps.
“It’s a strange thing for an old pro like Thompson to give anyone an uncontested platform for such a length of time,” Franklin said.
Asked why, Thompson said he had not put up his own ads because he did not have the money to do so.
The Senate race had simmered on the back burner until recently, because Wisconsin voters had been riveted by — and then exhausted by — Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s successful effort to hold onto his job in a June recall election.
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