Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel formally announced his re-election campaign Thursday, releasing a video that described himself as tough on crime and independent.
Schimel was first elected attorney general in 2014. Prior to that, he was Waukesha County’s district attorney.
He emphasized his background as a prosecutor in his announcement video, with the ad’s narrator referring to Schimel as the state’s “top cop” and proclaiming he had kept Wisconsin safe.
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“Drug dealers and criminals are behind bars,” the ad proclaims. “Human trafficking rings and the offenders behind them face prosecution and jail time.”
Schimel will likely face Democrat Josh Kaul in the general election.
Kaul is a Madison attorney who has worked on voting rights cases. Kaul has also emphasized his career as a prosecutor, having worked from 2010 to 2014 for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore.
Democrats released a statement calling Schimel’s claim that he’s independent “laughable.”
They noted Schimel’s work on multi-state lawsuits to try to overturn the Affordable Care Act and to block former President Obama’s overtime rules that would have increased pay for workers.
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