Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said Friday that she was dropping out of the governor’s race, just days after her campaign discovered major inaccuracies related to its financial reporting.
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“As we have continued to dig into our financial reports, it has become clear that there are issues that would be an ongoing distraction, not just for this campaign, but for the primary and for Wisconsin. This race is too important to let that happen,” Rodriguez, a Democrat, said in a video posted to X.
“I cannot, in good conscience, allow these questions to become a cloud over an election that Democrats need to win. Wisconsin deserves better than that,” Rodriguez added.
The decision from Rodriguez, who had been among the front-runners in the Democratic primary, roils a wide-open race for governor in the perennial battleground state. It also prompted at least one former candidate to revive their campaign.
On Sunday, Rodriguez’s campaign announced it had discovered “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies” in its campaign finance reports, leading to the firing of campaign manager Kara Spencer. Among the errors were duplicated contributions, which inflated how much money the campaign had raised and had on hand.
The development prompted calls from several of her Democratic opponents to end her campaign, with many slamming it as “disqualifying.”
Just as significantly, the discovery of the errors led Rodriguez to learn that her campaign had only $200,000 in cash on hand, she told reporters Monday.
Rodriguez had been among the leading candidates in the Democratic primary to succeed Gov. Tony Evers, who is retiring after serving two terms.
She’d placed first earlier this summer in an unscientific straw poll at the Wisconsin Democratic Party’s convention. And two high-profile candidates who’d dropped out of the primary in recent weeks — former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley — had endorsed her campaign.
But after Rodriguez’s withdrawal, Crowley is now jumping back into the race.
Late Friday, his gubernatorial campaign website advertised a “special rally” in Milwaukee for Saturday that spokesperson Eddie Vale confirmed to NBC News was a relaunch of his candidacy.
“My campaign for governor was never about one person,” his site read. “It was about a shared belief that Wisconsin deserves leadership that shows up, tells the truth, and gets things done for working families.”
Earlier on Friday, Hughes was among those calling on Crowley to restart his campaign.
“@DavidCCrowley get back in this race!” she wrote on X.
Other candidates who remain in the race include state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist who has unexpectedly seen a surge of momentum in recent weeks, and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a progressive who narrowly lost the 2022 Senate race in the state. Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary, and state Sen. Kelda Roys are also competing for the Democratic nomination.
The winner of the Aug. 11 primary is all but certain to face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is backed by President Donald Trump, in the general election.
Rodriguez’s exit sparked concern among some Wisconsin Democrats that Hong had a clearer path to the nomination and would be too far to the left to win in November in the swing state.
“Some believe Crowley would make the strongest general election candidate following the recent Sara Rodriguez mess and then obviously with her dropping out,” said one Wisconsin Democratic operative who requested anonymity to speak freely about a fluid situation.
“A potential endorsement from Evers has been one of the things used to try to” get Crowley back in the race, the operative said.
A spokesperson for Evers didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Hong told ABC affiliate WISN in Milwaukee that Evers “can feel free to endorse if he chooses” but that “all Wisconsinites deserve to have a voice in this race.”
Tiffany quickly seized on the shakeup in the Democratic primary.
“The Sara Rodriguez dropout, followed by the latest developments involving @GovEvers says it all,” Tiffany wrote on X. “Even Tony Evers is acknowledging that Mandela Barnes and Francesca Hong are too radical for Wisconsin. At least we can all agree that socialism would destroy our state.”
Barnes wrote in a post on X that he had “immense respect” for Rodriguez and directly addressed her supporters, saying that “there’s a place for you in my campaign.”
For her part, Roys said it was “time to unite the party,” while Brennan posted that he was “the candidate who will get big things done.”
Reliable public polling in the race has been sparse. A Marquette University Law School survey from March showed Hong with 14% and Barnes with 11%, with no other candidates receiving more than 3%, and 65% saying they were undecided.
