MADISON — Madison businessman Eric Hovde made it official on Tuesday: he’s running for U.S. Senate, aiming to deny Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin a third term.

Hovde launched a website and a campaign video Tuesday morning, hours ahead of a planned announcement event in Madison.

“Do you feel like America is slipping away?” Hovde asks in the video. “Our country is facing enormous challenges. Our economy, our health care, crime and open borders. Everything is going in the wrong direction. All Washington does is divide us and talk about who’s to blame, and nothing gets done. That’s not the country that I know and love.”

In a message on his campaign website, Hovde, 59, wrote, “it is only through unity and perseverance that we can restore the American Dream for future generations.”

Hovde will enter the race with the support of the national party. The National Republican Senatorial Committee late last year told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Hovde would enter the race and said he had the full support of Senate Republicans’ main campaign arm. The group on Tuesday shared an ad attacking Baldwin over her travel during the COVID-19 pandemic and her staff’s lobbying connections.

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NRSC Chair Steve Daines said Hovde’s “experience as a job creator rather than a career politician makes him a strong candidate to flip Wisconsin’s Senate seat this year.”

The announcement sets up the prospect for a high-profile race in a battleground state that could prove key in determining which party controls the Senate next year. Senate Democrats this cycle are defending 23 seats, including three held by independents who caucus with Democrats. Just 11 Republicans are up for re-election.

Hovde previously ran for Senate in 2012 but finished a close second to former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson in the primary. Thompson went on to lose to Baldwin by nearly 6 points. Hovde also weighed a race against Baldwin in 2018 but backed off, and briefly considered a run for governor in 2022.

In recent weeks, Hovde started to assemble his campaign team. He has traveled the state over the last several months speaking at various Republican events, making inflation and the nation’s debt a focus as he railed against the Biden administration’s handling of the economy.

Republicans in both Washington and Wisconsin have indicated they do not want a drawn-out primary race ahead of a November matchup with Baldwin. Still, Franklin businessman Scott Mayer told the Journal Sentinel last week he was seriously considering a run as he attacked Hovde.

But Mayer also gave mixed signals about the status of his nascent campaign, initially saying he was finishing up hiring staff before walking back those claims.

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has also kept his name in the mix.

Baldwin, meanwhile, continued to campaign and fundraise as she waited for a big-name Republican to enter the race. She reported raising more than $3 million in the last quarter for 2023 — more than the $2.8 million she raised in the same period ahead of her successful 2018 campaign. She began the year with just over $8 million in cash on hand.

Baldwin is a rarity in Wisconsin’s current political climate. In a battleground state where most statewide contests are decided by razor-thin margins, she doubled her victory margin from 2012 to 2018, defeating her GOP challenger, former state Sen. Leah Vukmir, by about 11 points.

Hovde, a resident of Madison, is CEO of a Madison-based commercial and residential real estate company started by his grandfather. He also leads two California-based businesses — H Bancorp and its primary subsidiary, Sunwest Bank. Democrats have attacked him for his 2018 purchase of a $7 million hillside estate in Laguna Beach, California, dubbing him “Eric Hovde, R-Laguna Beach.”

“California bank owner Eric Hovde is running for Senate to impose his self-serving agenda, putting ultra rich people like himself ahead of middle-class Wisconsinites,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesman Arik Wolk in a statement. “Hovde would vote to pass a national abortion ban, raise taxes on working families and seniors while cutting Social Security and Medicare, and repeal the Affordable Care Act.”

In a statement, Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman Hannah Menchhoff referred to Hovde as an “out of touch hedge fund manager who’s built his career catering to millionaires and billionaires” whose campaign “does nothing but kickstart what will inevitably become another brutal battle to the MAGA extreme.”

The race is rated lean Democrat by both the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Eric Hovde enters U.S. Senate race in challenge to Tammy Baldwin