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Eric Hovde, the Wisconsin Republican who nearly unseated Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, admitted this week that he lost the election but also raised questions about the legitimacy of the result as it considers calling for a recount.

Even if they celebrate President-elect Donald Trumphis victory, right-wing figures such as tech billionaire Elon Musk, as well as some prominent 2020 election naysayers, took advantage of Hovde’s refusal to budge. They accepted his baseless claims on social media that there were statistically “improbable” results and “inconsistencies” with the number of votes.

CNN projected last week that Baldwin would win a third term, and the latest unofficial results show Hovde losing by less than a percentage point. He fell short even as Trump carried the border state: Baldwin and Vice President Kamala Harris finished with very similar vote totals, but Hovde trailed Trump by about 56,000 votes.

Despite delegitimizing the result and saying he was paying “close attention” to a recount, Hovde also did something Trump didn’t do in 2020: He admitted he lost.

“I’ve been blessed with a lot of energy and very thick skin, and I’m a very resilient person,” Hovde he said on Tuesday on a conservative radio show. “I’m definitely going to pick myself up and move on and keep fighting for our great country and state, which is why I got into this whole thing. It is the most painful loss I have ever experienced.”

Election officials quickly dismissed Hovde’s theories about the alleged irregularities. Voting experts such as David Becker, who runs the nonpartisan Center for Election Research and Innovation, said there was “nothing inappropriate” about waiting to concede until the result was final, but any potential post-election lawsuits should be supported by facts.

“If (Hovde) is going to pursue a legal challenge, they’re going to need more than speculation and conspiracy theories spread on social media,” Becker said. “They will have to bring to court evidence that will stand up to scrutiny, sufficient to overcome their deficit.”

One four minute video posted on X, the Musk-owned platform formerly called Twitter, Hovde promoted several unsubstantiated claims to question the legitimacy of Baldwin’s win.

The wealthy businessman and CEO of Sunwest Bank said he was “shocked” by the coverage of the Milwaukee vote, which erased his lead and cemented Baldwin’s victory. He said, “statistically, this result seems improbable,” because he said Baldwin won an inexplicably large share of the new vote.

But others did not share Hovde’s surprise, including conservative experts WHO PREDICTED Baldwin looks strong in real time. That batch of about 109,000 new votes came from the city of Milwaukee, which is a Democratic stronghold. Additionally, the ballots in that lot were by mail and early voting, which disproportionately favors Democrats. The Milwaukee Election Commission was also clear that the late-night results were normal.

“It is both expected and common for absentee ballots — more than 100,000 in this case — to be counted and reported late on election night,” the commission said in a statement Tuesday, which explained, by also that state law does not allow -the processing of mail-in ballots, resulting in “a large number of absentee ballots being reported late at night.”

In the video, Hovde also claimed there were “voting inconsistencies” in Milwaukee, as some precincts saw “turnout of over 150 percent of registered voters” or more.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean more people voted than were eligible. These seemingly bizarre numbers can be attributed to same-day voter registration, which is allowed in Wisconsin.

The Milwaukee Election Commission said that “many newly registered voters exercised their right to support their preferred candidates” by registering to vote on Election Day and that it is “fully confident that Mr. Hovde’s allegations have no merit.” .

Baldwin responded to Hovde’s video by calling on her rival to accept the election result.

“On Election Day, I asked all Republicans and Democrats to accept the results of a free and fair trial and election, and that’s what we did,” Baldwin told CNN Tuesday afternoon. “I recognized mine and Donald Trump’s victory in the state of Wisconsin, and he must do the same.”

Role of Third Party Candidates

Hovde further accused Democrats of trying to “cheat the voters” and “siphon the votes away from me” by supporting a pro-Trump independent candidate and a libertarian candidate.

While Hovde leads Baldwin by just over 27,000 votes, Libertarian candidate Phil Anderson has about 42,000 votes and upstart America First Party’s Thomas Leager has about 28,000 votes. News reports indicate that the Democrats mails sent Anderson’s promotion and that Leager’s campaign has ties to Democrats donation and ADVISERS.

“Obviously, the claims about unfair third-party candidates — they’re perfectly legal and will have no effect on a recount or an election contest,” said Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Moldovan election law attorney and CNN contributor. “He has every right to bring a recount under Wisconsin law. But it’s not a margin that historically is changed by a recount.”

Hovde said in his video that he is still considering “all options,” including requesting a recount, and plans to announce a decision once the result is finalized. Counties must submit final ballots to the state by Nov. 19, and the statewide certification deadline is Dec. 1.

His video was promoted by Musk, who said the “sure” result seems unlikely, Kari Lake, the Republican whom CNN is projecting lose this year’s Arizona Senate race and falsely claimed it was mass fraud in her losing 2022 race for governor and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchellwho was on Trump infamous call with Georgia officials in which he tried overthrow result 2020.

Under Wisconsin law, Hovde would pay for the recount. Trump’s campaign paid for a partial reports of the 2020 Wisconsin election, which he lost by about 20,000 votes for Biden. It also existed at the state level reports in 2016 initiated by the Green Party candidatewhen Trump won with almost 23,000 votes,

“He raises some initial questions … and there are things he says that seem strange. But in most cases, those are just things you don’t like because you lost,” Ginsberg said. “Margins of 30,000 do not change in renamings. But it’s not crazy to ask for one.”

CNN’s Ali Main, Casey Tolan, Matt Holt, Manu Raju, Haley Talbot and Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.