When Republican County Officials Quit, Evers Picks Their Replacements

By Rebecca Draeger and Bill Osmulski

Democrats are quietly gaining ground in Wisconsin due to mid-term resignations by Republican county officials with enormous consequences for local crime and safety issues and potentially for national security.

Sheriff and district attorney are partisan positions in Wisconsin, and they hold enormous power at the county level. The sheriff decides what laws to enforce, and the district attorney decides what crimes to prosecute. The brutal reality is they have to prioritize, because there are too many laws and crimes to treat them all equally. Their political philosophy inevitably influences what they choose to prioritize, which is why these are partisan positions.

Election results show that Wisconsin voters overwhelming prefer Republicans to be in these positions of power. In 2018 they elected 55 Republican sheriffs, and in 2020 they elected 41 Republican district attorneys. Unfortunately, not all of those elected officials were equally as committed to their voters. By the end of those terms, there were 53 Republican sheriffs and 29 district attorneys left.

When a sheriff or district attorney resigns in Wisconsin, the governor, not voters, gets to pick a replacement. This is a big deal when the governor belongs to the other party. Since becoming governor in 2019, Evers has had ample opportunity to flip these local county seats from Republican to Democrat simply through mid-term resignations.

Between 2020 and 2024, Evers got to flip 12 district attorney seats, giving Democrats control of a majority of counties in Wisconsin. Republican voters managed to reclaim some of those seats in 2024.

Republican sheriffs initially were far less likely to resign mid-term with Evers in charge. He only got to replace two of them during his first four years in office. However, since 2023, eight Republican sheriffs have quit, allowing Evers to replace them with Democrats. In 2023, voters elected 57 Republican and 12 Democrat sheriffs. With the resignations, that has potentially shifted to 49 Republicans and 20 Democrats.

The implications of these flips are not limited to local law enforcement. The Wisconsin Assembly just passed a bill that requires sheriffs to cooperate with federal officials on immigration enforcement. The bill will never become law because Evers will veto it. However, Republican sheriffs are far more likely to cooperate with immigration enforcement with or without a law requiring them to do so. Likewise, Democrat sheriffs are unlikely to cooperate even if it is required by law.

Despite the importance of these positions, sheriff and district attorney races rarely get much attention. Sheriffs are elected the same year as the governor, and district attorneys are elected during presidential elections. Regardless, the consequences of picking bad candidates who have no intention of serving a full term can be devastating for local residents and reverberate into the realm of national politics.