GOP hopes of retaking the Senate in November facing new risk: analyst

The Republican Party's pursuit of a Senate majority after the 2024 election may be in jeopardy with a slate of rich political newcomers scrambling to convince voters that they are just like them.

According to MSNBC analyst Ja'Han Jones, multiple rich Republicans are trying to use the Donald Trump playbook and paint their success as a rags-to-riches story that is just as bogus as the former president's and it's a tough climb.

As Jones, points out, the Republican myth about pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps is not working for candidates in Pennsylvania and Ohio and now a Republican Senate candidate from Wisconsin is facing the same scrutiny.

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"Just look at the GOP’s Senate candidates for this fall. Bernie Moreno in Ohio and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania have both been raked over the coals for their bogus rags-to-riches stories," he wrote. "And we should keep that same energy with Wisconsin candidate Eric Hovde, the mogul whose lived experience doesn’t seem to line up with how he has described it."

In the case of Hovde, he reported, "... it’s noteworthy that he co-founded that business with his father, who had been a top housing official in the Reagan administration, and, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel once put it, “he used his father’s business and political connections” to build his own empire. That doesn’t sound like starting with nothing."

With that in mind, he suggested, "Hovde’s Senate campaign has hit choppy waters on the PR front in recent months, hampered by embarrassing video clips and remarks that seem downright cruel.

Hovde’s hypocrisy over subsidies and his exaggerated business bona fides only add to his list of demerits.'

"To be clear: Owning a successful business isn’t a bad thing. But misrepresenting how you came into that success? And discouraging ways to help others as you have been helped? That’s nasty work," he concluded.

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