Republican businessman Eric Hovde has begun hiring campaign staffers as he lays the groundwork for his soon-to-launch 2024 Senate campaign against Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, sources close to the him confirm to National Review. Hovde is expected to formally announce his statewide campaign in the coming weeks.

The wealthy real-estate developer and banking executive ran unsuccessfully for the GOP’s Senate nomination in 2012, but he hopes to avoid a contentious primary this time around now that he has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee ahead of the 2024 GOP primary. He’s expected to dip into his own pockets to help fund his campaign, though any extra cash from outside GOP spending groups will come in handy: Baldwin is sitting on $8 million in campaign funds as she gears up for a competitive re-election fight to secure a third term.

A number of experienced Republican operatives will run the Republican businessman’s campaign team. WisPolitics first reported on Wednesday that Hovde has hired as his general consultant Dave Rexrode, a veteran campaign strategist who has as served as senior adviser to Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin and as executive director of the Republican Governors Association, among other high-profile political roles. That report also names as his campaign manager Lexi Ardis, a former campaign staffer for Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson who helped elect conservative justice Brian Hagedorn to the Wisconsin supreme court in 2019. Hovde has also tapped Republican consultant and former Johnson aide Ben Voelkel to serve in an advisory role on the campaign, a sources familiar with the matter tell NR.

Once Hovde formally announces, he is expected to make the case that Baldwin is a career politician who votes more than 95 percent of the time with President Joe Biden. Though Biden carried Wisconsin in 2020, the president is currently polling evenly or below the former president and likely GOP nominee Donald Trump there in many head-to-head matchups.