Wisconsin voters delivered their decision on attorney general Peg Lautenschlager's record in office and 2004 drunken driving conviction Tuesday, snubbing her in favor of challenger Kathleen Falk in the Democratic primary for the state's top cop job.
In the Republican primary, J.B. Van Hollen of Waunakee won the nomination over opponent Paul Bucher, setting up a clear choice for voters in the November general election between Van Hollen, a conservative former U.S. attorney and Falk, Dane County's liberal top official.
Lautenschlager conceded defeat at a gathering of supporters in Fond du Lac around midnight. She said she simply couldn't raise enough money to counter criticisms raised by the three other candidates about her record and the night in 2004 when she drove her state car into a Dodge County ditch.
"There (hasn't been) a lot of time to decide what would I do were I not to move through this election. That day has come and I will start thinking about that tomorrow," said Lautenschlager, who said she was ready to throw her support behind Falk.
Surrounded by well-wishers in Madison, Falk thanked Lautenschlager for her years of service to the state, and said she was eager to take on Van Hollen in November.
"I will continue to offer my experience, which is 14 years as an assistant attorney general. That's 14 years longer than Mr. Van Hollen's been in that office," she said.
In the Republican race, Bucher conceded earlier in the night saying, "The votes, unfortunately, did not go our way. It's like losing a jury verdict. You do the best you can and the jury decides and you move forward with your life."
Bucher's concession left the 40-year-old Van Hollen, former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, with a chance to become the first GOP attorney general in Wisconsin in 16 years.
"I've run on the promise that I was going to change the priorities of the Department of Justice from advancing special interests to advancing law enforcement interests," Van Hollen said. "It's going to set up a clear contrast" with Falk.
Meanwhile, state Democratic Party Chairman Joe Wineke promised a unified fight against Van Hollen in November from Democrats, who were bitterly divided by the primary.
"Both candidates ran outstanding campaigns, and now the Democratic Party will unite behind our nominee, Kathleen Falk, to make sure we keep the attorney general's office in Democratic hands this November," Wineke said in a statement.
The primary campaigns were perhaps the most brutal of the season, with rhetoric that ran from vulgar insults to accusations of ineptitude and outright sleaziness.
In the attorney general primaries, the differences on the issues were "minor," UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin said. "In the general (election, it's) a liberal Democrat against a conservative Republican."
Van Hollen has promised to get tough on criminals, while Falk has touted her ability to balance effective crime fighting with other concerns like protecting consumers and the environment.
Van Hollen didn't wait to begin marking the differences between the two candidates and pointing out his record as a successful prosecutor.
"I prosecuted my first criminal case in my mid 20s and then we're going to have somebody on the Democratic side who has never prosecuted a criminal case at all," he said.
Falk responded by touting her record increasing the number of sheriff's deputies and overseeing law enforcement officials as Dane County executive.
"I know the Department of Justice. Argued and won my first Supreme Court case over 29 years ago. I know my way around the courtroom," she said.
Down to the final days and even hours of the campaign, pundits and party insiders were making predictions in the Falk and Lautenschlager race, with many incorrectly giving the edge to Lautenschlager.
Franklin said Lautenschlager did better than might have been expected in 2004 right after her arrest, making a strong win in Dane County, Falk's home territory. But Franklin credited Falk with making strong showings in Milwaukee and elsewhere in the state.
The drunken driving incident clearly contributed to Lautenschlager's loss, but criticisms from Falk and the Republican candidates of the attorney general's handling of the state crime lab and the rest of the department also played a role, he said.
In the Republican primary, Mordecai Lee, governmental affairs professor at UW-Milwaukee, called it "a stunning victory" for Van Hollen over Bucher, a career prosecutor in Waukesha County, a stronghold of Republican voters.
Lee said Van Hollen, considered the candidate of the Republican establishment, benefited from endorsements from both former Gov. Tommy Thompson and former Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow, as well as $700,000 of his own money that he poured into the campaign.
In the general election, issues that have smoldered in the primary will likely attract more attention.
Falk and Lautenschlager, for instance, held nearly identical positions on many issues. Both opposed concealed carry permits for firearms, the death penalty, a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions and a tough crackdown on immigration proposed by some Congressional Republicans.
Bucher and Van Hollen's views on those subjects diverged only slightly more, with both showing support for the death penalty, the gay marriage ban and concealed carry.
"You've got to be a real sheep to tell the difference between those sheep," Franklin said of the small differences between the two pairs.
In the general election, Van Hollen has said he will hammer on what he says are Democrats' misplaced priorities for the office. He's promised to shift the emphasis of the state Department of Justice from civil cases to fighting crime and solving related problems like a backlog in DNA testing at the crime lab.
Falk has said she'll also refocus the department on crime fighting, but she won't neglect other priorities such as protecting both the environment and consumers.
Van Hollen has drawn criticism from Falk and others for a statement he made in April that "we have in Wisconsin terrorists who are training and raising funds."
Tuesday Van Hollen said he felt the attorney general should watch out for terrorism as well as other violent crimes.
"To believe that we shouldn't do that is very, very dangerous," he said.
ATTORNEY GENERAL
2,933 of 3,506 polling places
Democrats
Kathleen Falk166,905
(i) Peg Lautenschlager151,158
Republicans
J.B. Van Hollen122,262
Paul Bucher82,172
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