Schimel Wins Race For Attorney General After Happ Concedes

Republican Brad Schimel defeated Democrat Susan Happ in the race for Wisconsin attorney general on Tuesday night by almost 2,000 votes.

Happ, who is currently Jefferson County’s district attorney, conceded early on in the evening, well before the Associated Press declared Schimel the winner around midnight. Schimel ultimately won by a margin of 9 percentage points.

Schimel, who is the district attorney in Waukesha County, ran for attorney general on a platform that largely focused on addressing Wisconsin’s heroin epidemic, something he called attention to in his victory speech.

“I’m putting the drug dealers on notice: You are public enemy No. 1 for the Wisconsin Department of Justice,” he said.

The candidates had been locked in one of the tightest attorney general races Wisconsin has seen in years, with Schimel accusing Happ of being soft on crime and Happ countering that Schimel would be a GOP robot who would blindly defend any law that Republican legislators pass.

In conceding the race to Schimel, Happ said she wished her campaign had focused more on issues like heroin instead of the attack ads that dominated the airwaves.

“We raised some important issues and I hope we raised some public awareness. I would like to have spent more of my time talking about the issues, but my opponent and the media went in another direction and I do regret that,” she said.

Schimel, for his part, blamed the attacks on outside groups. He promised to cooperate with Happ as attorney general on public safety issues.

At his victory party, Schimel also showed he isn’t just a prosecutor. He brought along his bass guitar and closed the night by getting up on stage and joining the band he’s played with for two decades.

“We have our work cut out for us — a lot of challenges ahead,” he told his supporters. “But tonight is not about that. Tonight, it’s all about the bass. Let’s rock and roll!”

Schimel will replace current Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who has been in office for six years and has defended laws such as Act 10, which restricted collective bargaining in the state, and a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

©Copyright Wisconsin Public Radio 2014. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Portions of this story contain information from the Associated Press.