GOP Senate candidates night debate Friday night on TV

Wisconsin voters will get their final chance tonight to see how the four Republican U.S. Senate candidates measure up against each other. A one-hour debate will be shown live at 8 p.m. by its sponsors – Wisconsin Public Television, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WTMJ-TV of Milwaukee.

In the Hudson area, the debate will be seen on Comcast and Baldwin Telecom channels 14, which carry WHWC-TV public television programming from Menomonie.

The debate comes just four days before Tuesday’s primary in which voters will decide who will go up against Democrat Tammy Baldwin in November for the right to replace the retiring Herb Kohl

A poll taken Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 8-9, by the Public Policy Polling firm shows the three runners in a dead heat. Eric Hovde had 27 percent, Tommy Thompson, 25 percent, and Mark Neumann, 24 percent – and all were within the poll’s 4.2-percent margin of error. Jeff Fitzgerald was fourth with 15 percent.

A Marquette poll earlier this week gave Thompson an 8-point lead over Hovde, with 21 percent of likely primary voters still undecided. Ideally, tonight’s debate would help the undecideds make up their minds. But according to Marquette pollster Charles Franklin, research shows that if people are still undecided close to an election, there’s a higher chance they won’t vote.

State officials have predicted a 20-percent turnout for Tuesday.

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