Rodriguez defends campaign amid finance scandal after once faulting Crowley for a ‘breakdown in leadership’

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is staying in the race for Wisconsin governor after revealing “inaccurate and incomplete” finance reports that led to the dismissal of her campaign manager over the weekend. 

Rodriguez announced the firing of campaign manager Kara Spencer on July 12. The next day the Democratic primary candidate held a news conference, announcing that she is not exiting the race, saying the “stakes are too high” and her supporters have already told her they are sticking beside her. 

Rodriguez said Spencer worked for her for several years and was responsible for filing the January reports. Rodriguez said she received several briefings on the finances of the campaign in recent months, but when her recently purchased TV ads didn’t air, she took a “deeper dive” into the finances, finding “mismanagement and inaccuracies.” 

Her campaign attorney has been in contact with the Wisconsin Elections Commission to correct the errors. 

In a decision made by Spencer, Rodriguez announced a $1 million TV ad buy in recent days, the lieutenant governor said. Those ads were supposed to begin on July 7, but when they didn’t, Rodriguez said she grew “concerned.”

On July 8, Rodriguez was told the invoice for the ads was not paid and therefore confronted Spencer, who gave “excuses … that did not make sense.” 

On July 9, Rodriguez said she discovered hundreds of thousands of less cash on hand than reported by Spencer. Rodriguez wouldn’t provide specific numbers because she said she wanted to make sure the numbers were accurate as the review is ongoing. 

She said if she had to put a number on it, the campaign has about $200,000 cash on hand and about $1 million has been raised. No donors have asked for money back, she added.  

On July 10, Rodriguez hired a team of political, legal, and compliance experts to do a “deeper analysis,” which found a double counting of contributions inflating how much was raised and a failure to report expenses that have been paid. 

“Those learnings were enough to know that my manager needed to be fired,” Rodriguez said, adding she wasn’t able to determine if Spencer’s actions were mistakes or intentional. 

“I am hurt, angry and deeply disappointed by someone I trusted to run my campaign,” she said.

Rodriguez was pressed by reporters saying the buck should stop with the public official, but Rodriguez claims she was duped by Spencer. 

“Everything looked right. It looked accurate,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez held a news conference she said to be “transparent, honest and accountable.”

“Part of being a leader is taking swift action and doing the right thing and to be honest as possible when there is a problem. I’m not waiting around here. If I were trying to hide something I wouldn’t be here today telling you about it. I am committed to full transparency about what happened.”

She added that she is not dropping out of the race.  

“This race is moving forward because the stakes are too high,” she said.

Roles reversed, Sara Rodriguez was critical of David Crowley 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley recently dropped out of the race and endorsed Rodriguez, saying she has the best chance to beat Republican Tom Tiffany. But that could have been based on an inflated perception using these inaccurate numbers. 

Rodriguez said she has spoken to supporters all across the state and “they are continuing to be with me. I am grateful for that.”

Crowley didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

But Rodriguez didn’t give Crowley the same grace when the county executive’s office faced backlash for a lapse in health insurance benefits for thousands of employees and retirees in February . 

Rodriguez described the incident as a “breakdown in leadership.”

“I think it is scary and unfortunate that that happened, and it means that there’s been a breakdown in leadership, that that is something that could happen,” Rodriguez told reporters at a news conference in Madison.

“I’ve actually never heard of that (happening), and so I imagine folks within Milwaukee County are pretty nervous about the fact that they may lose coverage or may not have some of their bills paid.”

One Democratic opponent still in the race, Joel Brennan, has publicly criticized Rodriguez in the fallout of the findings of financial inaccuracies. In a statement, Brennan asked, “How is this not disqualifying?”

Marquette University Law School is set to announce new polling data on July 22. Other polling suggests Francesca Hong and Mandela Barnes are the frontrunners in the race and Rodriguez was gaining momentum from third. Election Day is Aug. 11.