Only one candidate filed to run for Milwaukee County District Attorney
The office's top deputy, Kent Lovern, will not face a primary or general election challenge in the race for the open seat.
The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.
In recent years, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office has come into the spotlight on many occasions. This year presented a unique opportunity for voters to have their say on the future of the office with an open seat for the first time in a generation.
In January of this year, longtime District Attorney John Chisholm announced he would not be seeking re-election at the end of his term. Chisholm has served in the office since 2007, and was re-elected in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020.
With the seat being open for the first time in more than 15 years, many wondered what kind of election would take place this year. Open races for mayor and county executive in recent years in Milwaukee invited a host of candidates to run for office. But that’s not happening here.
Kent Lovern, the chief deputy in the office under Chisholm, is the only candidate who filed to make the ballot. He is running as a Democrat. He launched his candidacy days after Chisholm’s announcement in January, and had many endorsements from area leaders, including Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
Chisholm has long been a lightning rod for criticism among Republicans, but despite Lovern being the Chief Deputy since 2008, no Republican filed to run against him. Despite ever-present criticism from talk radio and right-wing media, there has been remarkably little effort toward any kind of electoral challenge for the county-wide office. This could, perhaps, raise questions about the sincerity of their criticism of the office.
Republicans also did not field a candidate in the race in 2020. Conservative-backed candidate Verona Swanigan challenged Chisholm in the Democratic primary in 2016, but Chisholm won in a landslide. He was unopposed in elections in 2008 and 2012. He never faced a Republican challenger during his entire time as Milwaukee County District Attorney.
Many District Attorney elections will be on the ballot in counties across Wisconsin this fall, but most will be like the race in Milwaukee where only one candidate will be on the ballot. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is also running for re-election unopposed.
According to the most recent filings to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, an overwhelming majority of counties have just one candidate running for District Attorney. The only Wisconsin counties where more than one candidate filed to run are in Washington, Waukesha, Wood, and the combined office for Menominee and Shawano Counties. In 67 counties, there is just a single candidate running for District Attorney.
In Milwaukee, this comes as a bit of a surprise. The DA’s office faced scrutiny for a number of issues from different parts of the political spectrum over the years, some of which was in the spotlight during what will now be Chisholm’s final term.
In 2021, Chisholm acknowledged a mistake in recommending low bail for Darrell Brooks in a domestic violence case just days before Brooks drove his vehicle into the Waukesha Christmas Parade, killing six people and injuring more than 60 others. Chisholm also faced criticism from members of the Black community over the years, after not charging police officers following the deaths of Derek Williams (in 2011), Dontre Hamilton (in 2014) and Alvin Cole (in 2020). He also faced criticism on the right after John Doe investigations into Scott Walker and his associates from his time as Milwaukee County Executive, which were derided as partisan, but the first of which resulted in six convictions for campaigning with public resources, and the second of which, over illegal coordination with conservative political groups, was shut down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2015.
But just as this criticism didn’t materialize into substantive challenges in past election cycles, such is the case once again in 2024, as it appears that Kent Lovern will be the one to serve as the next District Attorney for Milwaukee County.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 18 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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The prosecutor's office in Milwaukee County has been free of controversy since 1969 when E. Michael McCann was elected to his first term. His successor, one of McCann's deputy DA's , John Chisholm, took the reins in 2007 and continues until today.
The long term service of these two individuals defines the confidence that the electorate in Milwaukee County has shown for these two public servants.