Josh Kaul won this office in 2018 by criticizing his Republican predecessor over slow crime labs. Eight years later, his own department’s data shows the labs are now slower than the ones he inherited
This is the record Kaul presents to voters on November 3. The attorney general’s primary responsibility is to lead the state’s law enforcement agency, not to act as Wisconsin’s chief plaintiff against the White House.
The Labs Got Slower
The labs test DNA in rape kits, homicides, and crimes against children. Median DNA turnaround went from 50 days in 2018 to 112 days in 2024, according to Department of Justice annual reports cited by Heartland Post. The average hit 129 days in 2024, WPR reported.
The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found in June 2024 that median turnaround times across the labs increased by 48.7 percent between fiscal years 2019-20 and 2022-23. During the same stretch, the number of assignments decreased by 13.2 percent, resulting in slower outcomes despite reduced workloads.
Auditors also reviewed 146 sexual assault kit cases processed by a private lab and then returned to DOJ. The median processing time was 292 days. All but four cases exceeded the current six-month legal deadline.
Kaul responded to the audit by stating, “And to me that shows that the labs are working efficiently and that they’re highly effective.” He described the auditors’ recommendations as “quite mild and minor.”
At the October 11 WISN “UpFront” debate, Toney stated that Kaul gave his labs an A grade.
Kaul attributes the issue to the Republican Legislature. He requested 16 lab positions in the 2023-25 budget and received three, then requested 19 in the current budget and got none, WisPolitics reported. But the same audit found the vacancy rate for lab analysts increased from 2.6 percent in July 2019 to 9.5 percent in July 2023. Lawmakers did not leave these positions unfilled. During the debate, Toney presented DOJ emails, obtained through a public records request, indicating hiring freezes since 2022. Kaul stated that DOJ is currently hiring.
Additionally, Toney’s campaign alleges that two of Kaul’s top forensic science administrators co-founded a consulting firm that won a contract exceeding $700,000 to assess Colorado’s crime lab. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation confirmed in January 2025 that it hired “a Wisconsin consulting firm,” Forward Resolutions LLC. Toney states that Kaul has not clarified whether anyone in his administration approved this outside work.
He Finds Money for the Causes He Likes
Compare that excuse with what Kaul did when he wanted environmental lawyers. Starting in 2022, his DOJ used attorneys whose salaries were paid by New York University’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, which is funded by leftist billionaire Michael Bloomberg, WPR reported.
When senators asked why he did not request funding from the Legislature, Kaul responded, “Let’s not pretend like the Legislature would have funded additional environmental positions.”
The Senate oversight committee’s March 31 report found that the two privately funded attorneys were assigned to at least 35 cases, including actions against Wisconsin citizens and businesses. The report found no statute authorizing this arrangement and noted that DOJ swore in the attorneys after they had already begun work. Kaul described the hearing as “a political show.”
When the cause is environmental litigation, Kaul finds a billionaire’s foundation to pay for lawyers. When the cause is rape kits, he blames the Legislature for his failures.
More Than 70 Lawsuits Against Trump
Since 2025, Kaul has filed or joined more than 70 multistate lawsuits against the Trump administration on issues including tariffs, federal funding, birthright citizenship, and mail-in voting, according to WPR. In April, he joined 22 other attorneys general to sue over Trump’s executive order on voter lists and mail ballots.
When Kaul announced his run for a third term, he stated that part of his motivation was to continue challenging the Trump administration in court, WPR reported. At the debate, he boasted, “And we keep winning, by the way.”
Regardless of outcome, each of these cases requires attorney resources from a department that also manages the crime labs and the state’s drug investigations.
Red Cliff Tribal Chairwoman Nicole Boyd stated in her February State of the Tribes address that the number of DOJ narcotics agents based in the Eau Claire field office declined from four in 2013 to zero last year. “As a result, we know this has caused incredible delays in investigations, resulting in many unnecessary deaths,” she said, as WPR reported. DOJ says agents from other offices now cover the northern region.
Unfulfilled Commitments
In 2021, Kaul initiated a statewide review of abuse by clergy and faith leaders. Five years later, DOJ has received 333 reports, resulting in four prosecutions. There is no final report, and Kaul chose not to subpoena the Catholic dioceses or other religious institutions, according to the USA Today Network.
“We’re not putting an artificial timeline,” Kaul said. Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who initially supported the effort, now describes it as “so non-transparent.”
Kaul’s task force on missing and murdered Indigenous women, established in 2020, completed a draft report in 2023. As of August, the report had not been released, and task force members told the USA Today Network that Kaul’s office was revising it.
Kaul’s DOJ awarded more than $630,000 in federal victim assistance funds to Freedom Inc., a Madison activist group that Heartland Post has reported advocates abolishing police. A September federal inspector general audit, covered by Heartland Post, questioned $46,439 and found that Wisconsin DOJ officials “did not receive or review any invoices prior to approving the expenditures for reimbursement, as required by its policy.”
Politics First
In May 2022, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs, Kaul announced that his DOJ would not enforce Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law. Then he sued to block it. A 4-3 liberal majority on the state Supreme Court sided with him in July 2025.
Kaul has since called the state’s 20-week limit “problematic,” has argued for constitutional protection for abortion in Wisconsin, and says DOJ will weigh in on Planned Parenthood’s new lawsuit against the 24-hour waiting period, WPR reported. Asked what limit he would support, he declined to say.
The attorney general who refused to enforce a law on the books moved fast in another area. In June 2024, Kaul charged Trump’s 2020 Wisconsin campaign attorney Jim Troupis, adviser Kenneth Chesebro and aide Mike Roman with felony forgery, later adding 10 more counts in December. All three have pleaded not guilty. As of June, Votebeat described the case as “still in its preliminary stages.” Heartland Post has referred to it as lawfare, noting that Wisconsin taxpayers are funding a multi-year prosecution of Trump’s lawyers and aides related to 2020, while DNA results continue to face significant delays.
Kaul has also spent years litigating against the Legislature and, in June 2025, secured a 7-0 ruling striking down the lame-duck law that required legislative approval for DOJ settlements, the AP reported. That is where his energy goes.
The Case for Eric Toney
Eric Toney, 42, has been Fond du Lac County district attorney since 2013. He grew up in a law enforcement family. He helped set up the county’s drug treatment court. He served as president of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association from 2022 to 2024 and was named Wisconsin’s District Attorney of the Year in 2024, WUWM reported.
He has advocated for additional crime lab positions, as well as more prosecutors and public defenders statewide. In June 2023, he joined Kaul in requesting lab funding.
Heartland Post reported that 55 of Wisconsin’s 72 sheriffs, including Democrats, have endorsed him, as have the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police and the Milwaukee Police Association. Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain stated, “he answers the phone.”
His plan for the labs includes no hiring freezes, filling vacancies, ending remote work for analysts, establishing performance metrics, and prohibiting lab employees from outside work for other labs, according to WBAY. He also stated he would complete the clergy investigation and expand it to include abusers in other positions of trust, such as educators and counselors. “I’ll ensure that any investigation is finished, that we have answers for the public,” he said. “That’s the least that we can do.”
Regarding independence, he stated his approach is to “make decisions based on the facts in the law, not who’s in the White House, or the governor’s office or in control of a legislative chamber.” He has also stated that the 2020 election was not stolen.
The Race
Toney lost to Kaul by approximately 35,000 votes in 2022, a margin of just over one percentage point. This year, campaign funding is comparable: Kaul’s committee has reported raising more than $2 million in 2025 and 2026, while Toney’s total is close to $1.9 million, according to WPR. The Republican Attorneys General Association made an early $500,000 ad purchase in support of Toney.
The final Marquette Law School Poll before Election Day shows a race that is wide open. Nearly eight years into the job, Kaul is still a stranger to most of the state: 56 percent of registered voters have not heard enough to form an opinion of him, with 23 percent favorable and 20 percent unfavorable, the poll posted. His unfavorable number ticked up two points since September. Toney stands at 13 percent favorable, 13 percent unfavorable, and 72 percent with no opinion, and Marquette released no Kaul-Toney head-to-head. Seven in 10 voters have yet to form a view of the challenger, which leaves him room to grow in the final week. The incumbent has had two terms and still has not won over a quarter of the electorate.
A sexual assault victim awaiting a DNA result is not concerned with national politics. On November 3, voters will choose between a prosecutor focused on the core responsibilities of the office and an incumbent whose priorities have been progressive politics first.
