Hovde’s first public statement came a week after Election Day. In a video posted on social media on Tuesday, he said he was waiting for the vote to be completed before commenting on the outcome.

“Once the final information is available and all options are reviewed, I will announce my decision on how I will proceed,” Hovde said.

However, Hovde questioned the vote totals that were reported from Milwaukee’s central counting facility, where the city’s ballots are consolidated and counted.

About 108,000 absentee and provisional ballots were counted in the early hours of last Wednesday, with Baldwin garnering 82 percent of those votes, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission. In Milwaukee’s in-person ballots cast Tuesday, Baldwin won 75 percent of the vote.

Both Republican and Democratic analysts pointed out that Democrats have disproportionately voted absentee in the past few elections, and that the result reported by Milwaukee last week was in line with those trends.

In his video, however, Hovde highlighted the late-counted ballots. He falsely called Baldwin’s lead in that number “close to 90 percent,” claiming it was “statistically improbable” compared to the in-person vote count.

Hovde said that because of “inconsistencies” in the data, “many people urged me to contest the election.”

Ramos pointed out Thursday that Wisconsin lawmakers introduced a bill with bipartisan support that would have allowed election officials to begin counting absentee ballots the day before Election Day — ending the change in absentee ballots which have become a regular feature in Milwaukee.

The legislation passed the Assembly but died in the state Senate. “We have people in the state Legislature who would rather play political games and see moments like this than solve the problem,” Ramos said.

While Hovde was skeptical about the vote count in his video, in a radio interview after it was posted, he described the election result as a “loss”.

Hovde is “talking out of both sides of his mouth right now,” Ramos said. “And so on the one hand, we hear him say things like, you know, ‘It’s going to take me a while to get over this loss,’ and then we get to watch a video that goes viral on X. and Facebook and Instagram, where … he’s literally talking about how he doesn’t believe what happened in Milwaukee and how the numbers changed (in the vote count) are not accurate.”

In his video, Hovde said that “requesting a recount is a serious decision that requires careful consideration.”

Counties must submit final vote reports to the Wisconsin Elections Commission by Tuesday, November 19. Candidates then have three days to make a request for a recount.

State law allows candidates to seek a reports if they lose by a margin of less than 1%, but require the candidate to pay the cost if the margin is more than 0.25%.

“There certainly can be a recount, although it looks like he’s going to have to pay for it himself,” Thompson said. “(But) Eric Hovde has no right to baselessly spread false claims and election lies.”