Conservative commentator calls for possible Wisconsin GOP Senate candidates to be removed from voter rolls

Conservative commentator Mark Belling criticized possible Wisconsin Republican Senate candidates Eric Hovde and Scott Mayer on Tuesday for not voting in recent elections and said they should be removed from voter rolls.

Recent reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel suggest that Hovde has missed 17 of the last 30 elections in Wisconsin. Similarly, Mayer admitted that he did not vote in the 2020 presidential primary or that year’s general election. When asked why, he was unable to give a concrete reason.

“I didn’t vote, and I couldn’t even recall that I didn’t,” Mayer told the Sentinel in July. “I don’t know why. I mean, I don’t have a good reason.”

In a reaction to these reports, Belling questioned why people who don’t vote are not being removed from voter rolls.

“If you don’t care enough to vote in an election, I don’t know why we should trust you to be one of 100 people to vote on the future decisions of a nation,” Belling said.

Hovde is a banking executive who previously ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 but did not make it past the primary election. In 2016, he told conservative radio host Jerry Bader that he blamed the “deplorable” lack of civil engagement in America on men watching sports and women following Hollywood news.

Mayer is also a businessman and the acting CEO of QPS Employment Group, a recruiting company he founded in 1985. In 2015, Mayer went on an Islamophobic rant on Facebook where he questioned how long the world would have to put up with “this Muslim crap.”

Neither Hovde nor Mayer have officially announced a U.S. Senate run in 2024, and there is no clear challenger to take on Tammy Baldwin (D) in the 2024 general election.

“But I get that beggars can’t be choosers,” Belling continued. “The only two prominent Republicans we have that are angling to run for the United States apparently are the guy who votes some of the time — Hovde — and the guy who votes hardly any of the time — Mayer.”

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has also expressed interest in running in the race. He even sported a double-digit lead over Hovde and Mayer in a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling earlier this year. However, national Republicans may be skeptical to run a candidate like Clarke after similar far-right candidates saw little success at the national level in 2022.