The first and only scheduled debate between Wisconsin’s main party Senate candidates will be held on Friday evening — less than three weeks before Election Day — in a tight race considered to be crucial for Democrats to hold on to their  Senate majority. 

The state’s incumbent senator, Tammy Baldwin, and her Republican businessman challenger, Eric Hovde, will face off in a debate hosted by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association on Friday at 7 p.m. central time. Their race has been a heated one, with Democrats painting Mr. Hovde as an out-of-touch millionaire and Republicans portraying Ms. Baldwin as a career politician who has failed the state and spent far too much time in Washington, D.C.

Wisconsin for years has been a battleground state, with four of the last six presidential races decided by less than one percentage point in the state, and this year’s presidential election is projected to be extremely close as well. Vice President Harris is campaigning in several Wisconsin cities on Thursday, and RealClear’s polling averages indicate that President Trump leads the state by one-tenth of one percent. 

For the Senate race, although Ms. Baldwin has comfortably won her last two races, in 2012 and 2018, this year’s race has increasingly been getting tighter. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report last week shifted its rating of the race from “leans Democrat” to a “toss up,” joining two other toss-up races in Ohio and Michigan.

The election forecaster also said Montana’s Senate race “leans Republican,” as the state’s Republican candidate, Tim Sheehy, vies for Senator Tester’s seat. That means that five out of 23 Senate seats that Democrats are trying to hold onto are either projected to shift Republican or are “toss ups.” Republicans, meanwhile, are defending 11 seats that are all forecasted to stay Republican. 

Ms. Baldwin herself has acknowledged how close and pivotal the race will be. She wrote on X earlier this week that “if we lose in Wisconsin, Republicans are virtually guaranteed to take back the Senate and the White House.” Her campaign has also insisted to the Sun that they knew the race “was always going to be a toss up.”

“It’s kind of strange that Wisconsin has been so competitive for so long when so many other states have fallen in and out of competitiveness or never been competitive,” a fellow with Marquette University’s law school who tracks Wisconsin elections, Craig Gilbert, told the Cook Political Report when asked about what keeps the state’s races, especially the presidential one, so razor-thin.

“And the strangest thing is a whole lot has actually changed in that time, I mean the political map in Wisconsin has changed a lot, the demographics of politics and voting patterns have changed a lot in Wisconsin just like everywhere else. So magically we’re still a battleground state even though both parties have a different path to victory than they did 20 or 30 years ago,” Mr. Gilbert added.

As the race heats up, and with the clock ticking ever-closer to the election, Republicans have been dumping money into Wisconsin. Although Democrats have still outspent Republicans overall, the Associated Press reported this week that Republicans have invested more heavily during the final countdown, reserving $21 million in advertising spots from Monday until the election compared to the $15 million that Democrats have booked. Most of that new Republican funding, the AP noted, came from the Senate Leadership Fund led by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, which has made Wisconsin’s race a top priority and has poured more than $13 million into advertising spots there.

As the candidates are preparing for their one and only debate, each campaign attacked the other as “extreme” in statements to the Sun. 

“Eric Hovde is going to hold career politician Tammy Baldwin accountable for her record of failure,” a spokesman for Mr. Hovde, Zach Bannon, tells the Sun. “The debate will showcase what the people of Wisconsin already know — Tammy Baldwin is radical, extreme and wrong for Wisconsin and it’s time for change.”

Mr. Hovde has challenged Ms. Baldwin to do more debates and has lamented that Ms. Baldwin has only agreed to one, hour-long debate when “typically you get three, four debates.” He has said that he plans to hold her accountable for inflation, opening the southern border, and giving illegal immigrants benefits while veterans and people displaced by hurricanes suffer.

“Tammy Baldwin will show why Wisconsin voters trust her to represent them in the US Senate: she shows up, listens, and delivers for them and their families. And she’ll work with anyone to do it,” a spokesman for Ms. Baldwin, Andrew Mamo, tells the Sun. “Meanwhile, Eric Hovde will be the out-of-touch California bank owner we all know he is, spreading lies about Tammy, insulting Wisconsinites, and pushing his extreme policy agenda.”