Molly Beck

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - Former federal prosecutor Josh Kaul declared victory over Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel Wednesday morning.

The Associated Press had not yet called the attorney general's race as of Wednesday morning, but election results showed Kaul leading by 20,869 votes.

Kaul spoke a 9 a.m. press conference in front of the Dane County Courthouse in Madison and said Schimel called to congratulate him this morning. Schimel then released a statement saying it appears Kaul has won but he will wait for a final tally.

It appears Kaul earned a four-year term leading the Department of Justice about a decade after his mother, Peg Lautenschlager, held the same post.

He appears poised to become the state's top lawyer and law enforcement officer. He will be responsible for overseeing high-profile challenges to federal and state laws and improving the way the state combats a growing opioid abuse epidemic and abuse of seniors.

The race between Kaul and Schimel was largely negative and lower profile than competitions for the governor's office and for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Before the election, a Marquette University Law School poll showed the race statistically tied with Schimel up 2 percentage points over Kaul. More than two-thirds of polled voters said they didn't know much about Kaul.

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The race focused exclusively on both candidates' records in courtrooms prosecuting criminals instead of their experience handling civil matters, which makes up much of the Department of Justice's work.

Schimel, 53, received a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a law degree from the UW Law School. He joined the Waukesha County district attorney's office in 1990 and was elected Waukesha County district attorney in 2006.

Kaul, 37, received a bachelor's degree from Yale University and earned his law degree from Stanford University. Kaul was in private practice from 2007 until 2010 when he joined the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Maryland. In 2014, he moved back to Wisconsin and joined a Madison firm.

During the race, Schimel repeatedly attacked Kaul on his lack of experience in Wisconsin courtrooms prosecuting crimes.

Kaul maintained his experience handling federal prosecutions of large-scale heroin operations, gang members and a number of cases with more than a dozen defendants gave him experience beyond Schimel's.

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Kaul criticized Schimel over the pace at which evidence related to sexual assaults was tested, $10,000 spent on challenge coins for law enforcement officials and his handling of a handful of cases as a prosecutor involving child rapists in which some defendants received no prison time.

But Schimel defended his effort to identify the untested evidence — noting he was the first attorney general to do so — and said often times in sexual assault cases there is too little evidence to make the case for long prison sentences, resulting in plea deals.

The central issue of health care in the governor's race also bled into the race for attorney general as Kaul and state Democrats repeatedly criticized Schimel for his lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

Mary Spicuzza of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

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