Key Counties Come Through for AG Victors

Campaign insiders from the J.B. Van Hollen and Kathleen Falk campaigns said early returns from key counties showed them that their candidates would emerge in the primary.

Van Hollen advisor Darrin Schmitz said the campaign was eyeing totals in key southeast counties like Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Washington, and especially Paul Bucher's home county of Waukesha.

"Frankly our first reports back from Waukesha County told us that we were in an incredible position to win this race," Schmitz said. He also said reports that Van Hollen was taking Brown County by a 2-to-1 margin gave them a good indication that they would be victorious.

“I wasn’t surprised in the sense that we knew we had a better organization on the ground clearly,” Schmitz said. “There was no competition on the ground in terms of the grassroots support and what we did with them.”

Schmitz said the results ended up being consistent with polling trends they had seen.

“It was consistent with what we saw in the sense that we were the only candidate moving,” Schmitz said. “A few weeks out, it was our sense that we were tied at that point, but we were the only candidate that moved. And we knew at that point if we continued on with our get out the vote activities and our aggressive style of campaigning, we’d pull ahead of Mr. Bucher, and that’s exactly what happened.’

Key counties for Falk included La Crosse, Eau Claire, Portage and Marthon, as well as Milwaukee and Brown, Falk spokesman Adam Collins said.

Collins downplayed Lautenschlager's drubbing of Falk in her home Dane County, where the Dane County Exec. lost to the AG incumbent 60-40 percent.

"There was a lot of speculation from outsiders and insiders … that Kathleen was going to have some wide, wide margin in Dane County, and I don’t think anyone in our campaign ever thought that," Collins said. "As you know, Peg has a big base here. But the other thing is, I think the (Madison) mayor (Dave Cieslewicz) put it best when he said the people in Dane County here are the only people that win or lose got to keep Kathleen Falk as a public servant."

Collins expects Democrats to come together now behind Falk, and for there to be a strong coordinated effort throughout the party.

"I think what you’re going to see is it’s not going to be the Doyle campaign; it’s not going to be the Falk campaign. This is going to be Democrats coming together,” Collins said. “We’re asking obviously Lautenschlager supporters to join our campaign. This is about Democrats working together to defeat Republicans.”

Listen to an interview with Schmitz: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/060912Schmitz.WMA

Listen to an interview with Collins: http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/060912AdamCollins.mp3

-- By Greg Bump