As the dust settled after last Tuesday's attorney general primary, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin banded together in partisan unison at a rally.
U.S. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, Gov. Jim Doyle and a defeated Peg Lautenschlager came together in unity to endorse Kathleen Falk, and the rest of the Democratic Party for election in November.
While Democrats patched up divisions in their party this weekend, critics expect the campaign between Falk and Republican J.B. Van Hollen to grow increasingly mean-spirited. Negative ads will continue to dominate Wisconsin airwaves, but they will take a slightly different track as the opposing parties square off, instead of taking on their own party.
""The nature of the critique changes a little bit,"" said UW- Madison political science professor Charles Franklin. ""Peg had two bits of baggage—the drunk driving and also four years in the office. J.B. could attack her failings as the attorney general for the last four years. Now he doesn't have that target to attack. His attacks against Falk will now have to be prospective as supposed to retrospective.""
According to Franklin, negative ads will have to be employed in order to catch the public's attention among a bombardment of campaign ads this November.
""One of the problems for the attorney general race is how to compete with the extremely loud governor's race, because the governor's race is going to spend in aggregate a lot more money than the attorney's general race,"" Franklin said.
One way Falk and Van Hollen will become more visible is by campaigning with their respective candidates for governor. Each gubernatorial candidate has extended their support for their party's attorney general nominee.
Falk's campaign manager Adam Collins, said ""having a good relationship with the governor is important this fall, as Democrats come together up and down the ballot to defeat an extreme agenda we're seeing from the Republicans. One thing that has been clear about J.B. is he's out of touch with Wisconsin values.""
The Green Team plans on joining forces as the election nears. Luke Punzenberger, a spokesperson from Green's camp reiterated Green's support saying, ""Mark Green believes J.B. Van Hollen will be our next attorney general, and he's looking forward to campaigning with him over the next several weeks.""
Though voters could split their tickets and elect different parties to these closely tied seats, Franklin said it is a safe bet that the focus at the Capitol will be more coherent if both seats are occupied by the same party.
""The policy priorities of a Democrat in both offices are surely more consonant than would be the policy priorities if the two offices were split between the two parties,"" Franklin said.
