Wisconsin Democratic Lt.Gov.
Sarah 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.Subscribe to read this story ad-freeGet unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.“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 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 frontrunners in the Democratic primary, roils a wide-open race for governor in the perennial battleground state.Last 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 to ender 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 on 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 — ha...