Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin declared victory early Wednesday morning in her bid for a third term against Republican California bank owner and Wisconsin part-time resident Eric Hovde in a contest marked by relentless attacks from both candidates.

With 99% of the votes counted, Baldwin had 49.4% of the vote, less than 1 point ahead of Hovde, who had 48.5%. The Associated Press had not yet called the race as of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.

“It is clear that the voters have spoken and our campaign has won,” Baldwin said in a statement released at 4:30 a.m

Baldwin built on a sustained track record across Wisconsin, including leading counties generally dominated by Republicans. In this year's election campaign, she also became the first statewide Democratic candidate to receive the endorsement of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.

Tuesday's election ended a grueling, attack-filled campaign in which Baldwin started with a lead of about seven percentage points but that has shrunk in recent months.

Democrats early on portrayed Hovde, who grew up in Madison, as a California carpet dealer, pointing to his ownership of a bank based in Orange County and a multimillion-dollar mansion in Laguna Beach. The Baldwin team also highlighted numerous previous statements made by Hovde that portrayed them as denigrating nursing home residents, students, farmers, and others.

Hovde, however, characterized Baldwin as a career politician who had little to show for her two terms in the Senate and more than a decade in Congress and, before that, in the Wisconsin Assembly and Dane County Board.

Baldwin was also likely helped by one of her core messages, which focused on reproductive rights in the post-Roe era. Baldwin authored a bill to codify federal protections for abortion. Her campaign highlighted Hovde's past anti-abortion statements and his advocacy for the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended the federal right to abortion established in the landmark Roe v. Wade had been explained.