Eric Toney, the District Attorney for Fond du Lac County, announced at noon on Saturday of Easter weekend that he is running for Wisconsin Attorney General.
“As a front-line prosecutor, it’s critical we have an attorney general who has personal experience fighting crime in Wisconsin and who will support our law enforcement. As the next attorney general, I’ll make the safety and security of Wisconsin families my top priority,” said Toney in his press release.
The announcement came on a beautiful spring day when many Republican activists were doing their final campaigning prior to the Spring Election on Tuesday. That’s if they were not spending the day with their families or preparing for Easter Sunday. In addition to Easter, Wisconsinites were also celebrating the last days of Passover. With the decline of Sunday newspaper reading, Toney is apparently targeting shut-ins, the terminally ill and political writers who just happened to glance at Twitter at the right moment.
“What a dumb ass,” said RightWisconsin co-owner Doreen Wigderson.
In addition to the press release, Toney released a video on YouTube announcing his campaign:
In the press release, Toney criticized the Democratic incumbent Josh Kaul for having screwed-up priorities.
“Josh Kaul is supporting his liberal allies and their efforts in Washington to forgive a trillion dollars of student loans, while at the same time gutting criminal prosecutor positions at DOJ. This is an absurd misallocation of resources and a slap in the face to the men and women fighting crime in Wisconsin,” said Toney.
Toney is currently serving his third term as county district attorney. He also serves as President-Elect of the Wisconsin District Attorneys’ Association and volunteers in the community as a judge and trainer for Teen Court. He is also a board member of ASTOP (sexual assault survivor advocacy non-profit) and is a former executive board member of the Fond du Lac County Republican Party.
Toney is likely to face Professor Ryan Owens, the Director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the 2022 August Republican Primary Election. Owens has not yet announced his candidacy.
Kaul is in his first term after narrowly defeating Brad Schimel in 2018 by just 17,190 votes out of 2,642,851 votes cast. He is likely to seek a second term.
