After disclosing a crisis in her campaign for governor this week, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez remains committed to staying in the contest for the Democratic nomination, a spokesperson for her campaign said Wednesday.
The Rodriguez campaign has lined up a public relations and crisis communications firm, Pod3Strategies, whose CEO, Christina Freundlich, has been fielding calls from reporters this week and spoke briefly with the Wisconsin Examiner Wednesday.
Rodriguez met with residents of the Madison YWCA on Tuesday, outlining her campaign’s policy positions and answering questions. The campaign was working to file its next round of campaign finance reports by the Wednesday midnight deadline, Freundlich said.
Meanwhile, Citizen Action of Wisconsin announced its endorsement of state Rep. Francesca Hong Wednesday in the governor’s race. The grassroots advocacy organization cited Hong’s positions on data centers, healthcare and hospital costs, utility costs and a minimum wage increase.
“In our intensive grassroots endorsement process Citizen Action leaders concluded that Francesca Hong is the best candidate to meet the moment by restoring a vibrant popular democracy that acts in the interest of average Wisconsinites, not the corporate monopolies that dominate state government,” said Robert Kraig, the organization’s executive director.
Wednesday was also the deadline for campaign finance reports for state offices. Reports covering fundraising and spending from January through June were due by 12 midnight.
A massive shortfall in the Rodriguez campaign along with inaccuracies in the reports that the campaign filed in January rocked the Democratic primary contest this week days before the Wednesday deadline. Rodriguez fired her campaign manager, Kara Spencer, on Sunday and at a press conference Monday said she would continue her campaign while working to rectify the errors that had been committed.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday that Spencer had a history of financial problems prior to being named to her campaign job.
Rodriguez said Monday that the campaign’s financial problems surfaced for her when a statewide ad did not start to run on TV a week ago Tuesday. The campaign had put out a press release announcing it was making a $1 million ad buy.
A review of the campaign’s last finance report filed in January showed numerous duplicate transactions. Rodriguez said Monday that her report this week would show about $200,000 in cash on hand and that she has raised nearly $1 million over the course of the campaign.
On Wednesday, another rival of Rodriguez for the Democratic nomination, former Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan, held a news conference about his campaign finance report and flagged the document’s top line — $665,000 raised from Jan. 1 to June 30. Brennan said he’s raised $1.22 million since entering the race in December.
Brennan spoke outside the office building in downtown Madison that houses the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, which collects the finance reports.
Brennan described his campaign’s infrastructure, with a fundraising team and with reports compiled with the assistance of a compliance firm, a lawyer, the campaign manager and the campaign treasurer.
“It goes through all of those layers before it gets submitted here to the state of Wisconsin. That’s what responsible management is like in a campaign,” Brennan said. “That’s what we do in government.”
In an account published Wednesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that an unnamed Rodriguez campaign official was asked whether the campaign treasurer had signed off on the January finance report or had raised questions about the $1 million ad buy.
According to the newspaper, the official said the treasurer “is a figurehead and volunteer role and was not involved in day to day finance operations.”
Brennan mentioned that description and, drawing a contrast, introduced his own campaign treasurer, Janet Piraino. He described her as a trusted individual whom he had known for decades. But he also emphasized that it was up to the campaign to establish “the infrastructure around [its financial reports] to ensure that what they are doing is going to be accurate, is going to be right, is going to reflect the will of the donors and the will of the people of Wisconsin.”
He said that the first money raised in his campaign was spent to establish that infrastructure and ensure the professionals responsible for fundraising and reporting were paid.
Asked directly whether Rodriguez should drop out of the race, Brennan demurred.
“That’s for Sara to decide. That’s for her and her family and the people around her,” he said.
But he argued the missteps in the Rodriguez campaign would be used against her in the general election if she is nominated as the Democratic candidate, and would interfere with campaign messaging around issues including healthcare costs, public education and other topics.
“If you can’t demonstrate competence when it comes to running your campaign, that shouldn’t give people a lot of confidence in your ability to manage the hugely complex areas around state government,” Brennan said.
Another candidate for the Democratic nomination, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes declined Tuesday to say Rodriguez should quit the race.
Barnes spoke to reporters after a campaign event critiquing the role of money in politics. He was asked if the Rodriguez campaign’s financial errors were “disqualifying” and how voters should assess them in evaluating her candidacy.
“I think that is up to her campaign to figure out,” Barnes said. “It’s up to voters to decide if that campaign will ultimately be the strongest or not, if they’re able to communicate that or not. But that’s a decision that should be left up to them.”
Also running in the Democratic primary is state Sen. Kelda Roys, who held an event focused on healthcare in Milwaukee Wednesday.
