Sarah Rodriguez fires her campaign
manager for what she calls serious
mismanagement.
All right.
Sarah Rodriguez fires her campaign
manager for what she calls serious
mismanagement.
And suddenly, the Democratic primary
for governor is all shaken up.
We look at how the race changed
overnight.
I'm sorry, I did not see that
coming.
Can I blame the smoke?
Can you fire your campaign?
I'm like, yeah, I'm firing my
campaign manager.
Sarah Rodriguez fires her campaign
manager for what she calls serious
mismanagement, and suddenly the
Democratic primary for governor is
all shaken up.
We look at how the race changed
overnight and who's raising money in
the homestretch.
This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.
I'm Sean Johnson here with Zach
Schultz and Rich Kramer in Eau
Claire. Hey guys.
Hello.
So before we get started
with our discussion here, let's play
a clip from Sarah Rodriguez from
a press conference this week that we
definitely did not see coming last
week. This was a press that
she held on Monday, the day after
she told us that she had fired her
campaign manager.
This was over campaign
finance reports that
she said showed that she had
hundreds of thousands of dollars
less than she had expected.
She said she noticed these when she
was getting ready for her TV
ad buy to start playing on
the air. It never played.
Turns out she didn't have the money.
She was asked how she let this
happen. And here's what Sarah
Rodriguez had to say.
What I will say is this,
is that I met regularly with
my campaign manager about
how the campaign was going.
And based on the information that I
received and the information our
partners received, it looked
accurate.
I trusted her to do
the job that I had hired
her to, that she had done
for her entire career.
And I regret placing my trust in
that individual.
And Sarah Rodriguez went on to say
that it was her campaign manager who
had approved a press release
promising a $1 million
ad buy.
That $1,000,000 ad buy is not gonna
happen. She just didn't have the
money for it. She did announce a
new ad buy, it will be smaller.
We don't know how much smaller
because she has substantially less
money.
My question to both of you is,
as we look at this race, to me it
feels like it completely changed
the fundamentals of this race.
Zach, is that the impression you
get? And my next question is.
Absolutely, this has changed
everything. Just a week ago, we were
talking about the momentum that
Sarah Rodriguez had with multiple
candidates dropping out, endorsing
her. Could she call us as
the main rival, the centrist
moderate candidate in this race that
a lot of Democrats were looking at?
And that seems to be out the door.
I was on the road this week
following up with the other four
Democratic candidates in this
primary. And so I had the ability
to be in a lot of areas of the
state. Where there were a lot of
Democrats who are still processing
this. This was rank and file voters.
These were county members.
These were some elected officials.
So they, the whole strata of
people, and for most of
them it was, how does this happen?
And the number one rule of any
campaign is you demonstrate
your ability to be an executive
by how well you run your campaign in
the first place. And you often don't
get credit for it, but you
definitely get penalized when things
go awry.
And when you're missing this much
money and you are this far out of
the loop, the number one question
from everyone is, how did this
happen?
So there are people that are
reconsidering whether they think she
has enough votes to win a primary
and if she's the best candidate to
take on Tom Tiffany in the fall from
the Democratic perspective.
And it kind of has a dual firing
squad purpose for her.
And one in that there are.
People that support her still,
but are more worried about whether
others.
Still supporters, so they fear
backing a candidate that's not going
to win in the primary.
So they're having to reconsider,
well, should I go for my next
favorite candidate?
Even though I still like Sara
Rodriguez, should I switch to
a Joel Brennan or a Kelda Royse or a
Mandela Barnes or a Francesca Hong,
the other candidates in this race
who are looking to
take advantage of this opportunity
and pick up some of those soft
Sara Rodriguez supporters?
Yeah, I mean, when a big part of
your pitch to voters is
that you are the candidate who can
win, you're making that electability
pitch as you hit the homestretch
here, anything that
kind of calls that into question
hits you harder than you
might hit if you were just a
candidate who was kind of an issue
candidate or a candidate who had
really solidified one
section of the party.
Rich, what's your read on this?
Why was this so
big, seemingly?
And affect not only Sarah
Rodriguez's campaign, but everybody
else's.
Well, what we
saw was it was a Democratic
primary that was
starting to get a little heated in
terms of attacks between
the candidates, but it was very
muted.
And then it got a little hotter.
But this just kind of
scattered blood in the water.
And Democrats like Mandela Barnes,
Joel Brennan, Kilda Royce, Francesca
Hong, all of them really.
Just went on the
attack. Some of them got very
vicious about, you
know, asking questions,
why, how could this happen?
Just trying to keep it in the news
cycle.
Some accused her of just,
you now, bad campaign management
or worse.
It was really remarkable some of
these statements that we've gotten,
some of the comments that they've
made to reporters
or in other forums.
So that, to me, is how it shook
up the race.
Meanwhile, Republican
Congressman Tom Tiffany, who's
essentially unopposed, he's
making a lot of hay of this as well.
So I guess I'm wondering
right now as we record this on
a Thursday, is this something where
Sarah Rodriguez can kind of
pull out of this tailspin?
Where people like us watch
this and think, hey, that's a big
deal.
But voters out there look at it and
say, I'm actually not
so worried by that.
There's a legitimate question there,
because there's one tendency to
think that, oh, well, this is gonna
evaporate all of our support.
I was at Farm Tech Days in Stratford
on Tuesday, and I ran into a
gentleman who said that his wife had
already cast her absentee ballot.
Ballots are already out and coming
back for Sarah Rodriguez.
And I asked him, well does this
change your perception of whether
that's a vote that you would have
wanted to make again? He said,
absolutely not.
My number one concern is whether
this means she'll have enough money
to do what she needs to do to beat
Tom Tiffany.
So this didn't change that
particular voter's perspective.
Last night, I was in Ozaukee County,
which is part of the old WoW County.
It's one of those classic cherry red
Republican areas that is shifting
more and more blue, lighter red
every time. And they had a packed
room and they had straw
pool. All the members got a straw as
they walked in the door and they
have the glasses in the back of the
room. So the old fashioned, you see
how your neighbor votes.
Sarah Rodriguez won the straw pool
Ozaukee County.
That was on a night where Francesca
Hong was the speaker.
She was in the room walking by the
jars of straw.
She came in second, but Sarah
Rodriguez still won and some of the
same rhetoric came from the voters I
talked to there.
And these are core Democratic county
members. They're proud to pay their
dues and get their straw to put in
the basket for Sarah Rodriguez
saying, well, my number one concern
is whether she'll have enough money.
And the campaign finance reports
weren't fully out at that time.
And right now, it does not look good
for her being able to get her
message out at all.
So that double whammy of it's the
negative news cycles and she can't
get her own message through really
does call into question what happens
over the next week, especially as we
know the Marquette poll is in the
field or about to be in the field,
which will really inform and
persuade a lot of voters who are
going to play follow the leader, who
is the most electable, who has
momentum.
And if she had it before and she's
lost it now, can she regain
she is clearly looking
to regain it.
I mean, it's not something where she
just folded after this press
conference. She made a point of
saying this campaign is moving
forward, which I gotta admit, when
I walked into that press conference,
I was not expecting that level of
severity. And so when she brought
that up, I thought, uh-oh,
what is going on here?
But like, it seems like she's trying
to kind of prime the pump,
you know, make sure that
nothing is
here, folks.
We're running a campaign, we're
winning straw polls, we have an ad
up in the air. Look at the ad, I
look good in this ad.
You could imagine me in a general
election.
We're riding the ship on these
fundraising numbers.
Rich, like what's the problem with
that, I guess?
Why might that not work?
Well, riding the ship with
a month or so to go until the
primary, right when candidates
are generally trying
to put as much money into getting
their name out as possible,
that's the problem.
So her campaign and
Sarah Rodriguez, they both
seem pretty committed
to staying in this, and they've
raised a lot of money.
They've been doing a lot of
campaigning. They have been working
with donors to some extent over the
years.
There's people who have already
committed to her candidacy.
I honestly have no idea
what will happen next.
I have seen speculation online
that, well,
if she can clear the primary,
the Democratic money will come, no
big deal. But it's just
maybe the worst timing for
this sort of news
to come out from your campaign if
you're trying to win a nomination.
Yeah, I mean, it does strike me
that it is kind of a multiplier
effect with the problems she faces.
She could make a bigger case
about why she's the candidate,
you know, drive the message with
these TV ads.
The problem is she just can't afford
them. Like the money is a serious
problem for her in terms of being
able to hit home that message
and that could compound.
You know, will donors continue to
give her money? She says they are
since Monday.
Uh... That they've gotten more money
but i think we have to see those
reports before we can just kind of
take their word for it at this point
in the cycle
Well, Sean, one of the things that's
interesting is we've gotten all the
emails. Every one of the other
candidates says that this benefits
them. Yeah.
And they're all trying to reframe
this as now it's a two person
primary.
And it's not the same two people in
every given case.
It's not even a clear front runner
of who each one of them thinks is
the other major candidate that's
out there.
But Joel Brennan says this
absolutely revitalizes his his
odds of winning that people are now
looking for a backup centrist,
moderate with executive experience
and. Talking about his experience
with the DOA, Kel DeRoyze was saying
this absolutely gives people
a chance to look at her candidacy
again and gives her momentum and
Ella Barnes said the same thing and
Francesca Hong just calmly just
says, I've got a grassroots campaign
that keeps growing and more and more
people see why she's a favorite for
a lot of them.
But the question for you is, do you
see any one of them that could
actually claim to be able to take
the most advantage from this?
I think that's a pretty...
Open discussion here and
especially with the fundraising
numbers we're gonna get into it does
seem like when you mentioned the
two-candidate race I saw that term
a couple times in their statements
today it is it is
somebody plus Francesca Hong you
know like they have sort of conceded
that she has the left wing of this
primary and that with
Sarah Rodriguez stumbling
I Mandela Barnes and the
person who can occupy that other
lane or Joel Brennan
or you you know, Kel DeRoy's, they
all seem to think that they are.
In that non-Franchesca
Hong lane.
Rich, what kind of
clues did we get from the
fundraising numbers today?
Everybody had to report their
numbers, Sarah Rodriguez, all
the candidates for governor,
including Tom Tiffany, the
Republican candidate for governor.
What did we learn in terms of
how much they raised in the
first half of this year?
Yeah, so this is the period between
January 1st and June
30th. I've got my cheat sheet here.
Um, the two top fundraisers were
Mandela Barnes and Francesca
Hong.
So Barnes raised around $840,000
in that period.
Hong raised around 700,
$9,000.
In that period, but the others
weren't too far behind.
So Joel Brennan brought in around
$666,000
Rodriguez.
Uh... Raised around five
hundred sixty two thousand dollars
with a big asterisk there
uh...
Not with the report but because of
outstanding debts and other things
uh...
And uh... Kelda roy's raised around
527 thousand dollars
so that's them's the numbers
Okay, so a delayed
answer to your question.
I think they would look at that and
Mandela Barnes would say, in fact,
I'm the candidate who can benefit
from this and I'm, you know, and I
am the one who goes against
Francesca Hong.
Kel DeRoy's and Joel Brennan would
say actually our reports are
pretty good and we didn't lose the
2022 Senate race.
So, you now pick us, pick us.
So how about cash on hand?
You know, this money raised is nice,
but it is July and
you need money to get to this August
primary.
Yeah, the one I want to get out of
the way right away is Sara
Rodriguez's campaign said it
had around $35,000
in cash on hand at the end of
June. That is
a big problem.
And also, just to note,
their campaign reported around
$150,000 or so in
outstanding debt.
So that would theoretically
go against whatever money she
raises, but I'm
no expert with that.
So, Francesca Han.
In terms of cash on hand,
$411,000.
Kelderoy's around $406,000,
and Joel Brannon had around $360,000
One thing that was interesting to me
is that, you know, Democratic
Milwaukee County Executive
David Crowley, he dropped out of the
race last week, and
he still had more cash on-hand
than Mandela Barnes.
Crowley had $315,000
Barnes ended the
June with $204,000
So.
Pretty interesting numbers.
Zach, as you hear the cash numbers,
what do you think their
interpretation of those would be?
I mean, do you hear a clear front
runner just in terms of how much
money they have in the bank?
It's how much money they have in the
bank and how much is already
committed to ads going out the door
and whether that's enough to
actually change the position that
they're in.
I asked Francesca Hong about this
last night. I said, what should
viewers or voters take from these
campaign reports?
How should they parse these numbers?
And she said the thing to look at,
of course, favoring her campaign,
she's figuring to favor her campaign
is that it should be how
many voters have given.
How much have they given?
And she claims she has the most
support from Wisconsin, that she has
broadest support from new people
coming into this electoral politics,
and that some of the other
comparisons are, some of these other
candidates are more relying on
$20,000 max donors that
are tapped out, that can't give any
more money.
But I think the bigger question
going forward is how any of them
compare to Tom Tiffany.
And Rich, I'm sure you've got the
numbers on him, and those are really
striking in comparison to what we
just talked about.
Yeah, to say the least.
I'll just toss both the
raised and the cash on hand.
So during the first six months of
this year, Tom Tiffany raised 8.7
million dollars.
I mean, that's light years beyond
what all the other dems
and the raise have raised.
And he also has six
million dollars, oh, excuse me,
of the money that Tom Tiffany
reported raising, six million
of that came from transfers.
And at the same
time, GOP mega donors
Dick and Elizabeth Uline and
Diane Hendricks gave about six
million dollars to the Wisconsin
GOP.
So they're able to do
those unlimited transfers.
But Tom Tiffany, he
spent a ton and he has
six.
He's got more money on hand right
now than all of the other Dems
combined, per the math I did.
You know, just when you look at the
Democratic fundraising as a whole,
those are not huge numbers in
Wisconsin.
It kind of struck me this whole
campaign that if one of these
candidates had a big donor
on their side who was willing to
throw some money into a pack and run
some ads on their behalf, God,
that could seal the deal.
And lo and behold, somebody is
running a big $2 million ad
for or against one
of the candidates.
It's targeting Francesca Hong,
basically calling her super liberal,
too liberal for Wisconsin.
But that is running ahead of
Democratic primary in democratic
markets of Milwaukee and Madison
by a Republican group.
Zach, what's going on there?
Well, this is a similar group that's
been playing in a lot of these
Democratic primaries trying to get a
more liberal, socialist, progressive
type candidate on the ballot that
they think will be easier to defeat
in November.
It's a playbook that they've seen
work in a couple of races and
fail in a few others.
Francesca Hong talked about that.
She said she's more than happy to
have them advertise for her.
She thinks she's still the best
candidate to win in the fall.
Obviously, the other Democrats are
ringing alarm bells about that,
saying if this is who Tom Tiffany
wants to face, and Democrat.
Democratic voters should be thinking
twice about that.
But I think the last thing that we
should be talking about here is the
Democratic primary last year said
they were going to raise money for
the contender.
So whoever came through would have
one of those big lump transfers and
what really stood out in this,
they've only got a couple million
dollars.
So they have not, they're not
sitting on six or 10 million waiting
to dump into whoever wins this.
We're used to them being the
juggernaut.
Yeah, now all suddenly the the
stage GOP has united its
mega donors and they're sitting on a
lot of cash
This will be a wide open race,
whoever comes through this primary,
there will be a lot of ground need
to be caught up to raise funds for
the fall.
And I understand why they did it,
why they kind of held their money
through this period.
But you gotta wonder if in
the future, somebody will question
why they didn't attack Tom Tiffany
while he ran millions of dollars
worth of ads over the course of this
summer. It's an open question.
I mean, we'll definitely watch it
and may have the answer in a few
months.
That's all the time we have for
today. Thanks for joining us.
Our colleague Anya Van Wagtendonck
will be back next week.
This has been Inside Wisconsin
Politics. Be sure to follow us on
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