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the

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Sarah Rodriguez fires her campaign manager for what she calls serious

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mismanagement

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Sarah Rodriguez fires her campaign manager for what she calls serious

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mismanagement

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and suddenly the democratic primary for governor is all shaken up

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we look at how the race changed overnight

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i'm sorry i did not see that coming

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i can i can i blame the smoke

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the mic yeah i'm firing my campaign manager

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Sarah Rodriguez fires her campaign manager for what she calls serious

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mismanagement

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and suddenly the democratic primary for governor is all shaken up

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we look at how the race changed overnight and who's raising money in

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the homestretch

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this is inside wisconsin politics

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i'm shown johnson here with zach seltz and rich cramer in ochlear hey guys

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hello

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so before we get started with our discussion here let's play a

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clip from sarah regis from a press conference this week that we definitely

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did not see coming last week

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this was a press conference that she held on monday the day after she told us

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that she had fired her campaign manager

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uh this was over campaign finance reports

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that uh she said showed that she had hundreds of thousands of dollars less

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than she had expected she said she noticed these when she was getting ready

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for her tv ad buy to start playing on the air

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it never played uh turns out she didn't have the money

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she was asked how she let this happen and here's what Sarah Rodriguez had to say

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what i will say is this is that i met regularly

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with my campaign manager about how the campaign was going

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and based on the information that i received and the information that our

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partners received it looked accurate

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i trusted her to do the job that i had hired to do

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that she had done for her entire career and i regret placing my trust

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in that individual and sarah regis went on to say

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that it was her campaign manager who had approved a press release promising a

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one million dollar ad buy that one million dollar ad buy is not going to

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happen she just didn't have the money for it she did

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announce a new ad buy it will be smaller we don't know how much smaller

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because she has substantially less money uh my question to both of you is

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as we look at this race to me it feels like it completely

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changed the fundamentals of this race Zach is that the impression you get

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and my next question is why absolutely this has changed everything just a

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week ago we were talking about the momentum that Sarah Rodriguez had with

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multiple candidates dropping out endorsing her

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could she coalesce as the the main rival the centrist moderate candidate in

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this race that a lot of democrats were looking at

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and that it seems to be out the door i was on the road this week following up

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with the other four democratic candidates in this primary

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and so i had the ability to be in a lot of areas of the state

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where there were a lot of democrats who are still processing this this was

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rank and file voters these were county members these were some elected

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officials so they the whole strata of people

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and for most of them it was how does this happen and the number one rule of

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any campaign is you you demonstrate your ability to be

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in executive by how well you run your campaign in the first place

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and you often don't get credit for it but you definitely get penalized when

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things go awry and when you're missing this much money and you are this far

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out of the loop the number one question from everyone is

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how did this happen so there are people that are reconsidering

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whether they think she has enough votes to win a primary and if she's the best

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candidate to take on tom tiffany in the fall from the democratic perspective

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and it kind of has a dual firing squad purpose for her in one in that

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there are people that support her still

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but are more worried about whether others

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still support her so they fear backing a candidate that's not going to win in

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the primary so they're having to reconsider well should i go for my

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next favorite candidate even though i still like sera rad regas

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should i switch to a jul breading or a kelda royzer a mandela barns or a

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francesco hong the other candidates in this race who are

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looking to take advantage of this opportunity and pick up some of those

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soft sera rad regas supporters yeah i mean when a big part of your pitch to

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voters is that you are the candidate who can win

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you're making that electability pitch as you hit the home stretch here

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anything that kind of calls that into question

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uh hit you harder than you might uh hit if you were just a candidate who was

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kind of an issue candidate or a candidate who had

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really solidified one section of the party

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rich and what's your read on this why was this so big seemingly

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and affect not only sera rad regas's campaign but everybody else's

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well what we saw was it was a democratic primary that

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was starting to get a little heated in terms of attacks toward uh between

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the candidates but it was very muted and then it got a little hotter

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um but this just kind of you know scattered blood in the water and

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um democrats like mandela barns Joel Brennan killed a royzer Francesca

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hong all of them really uh just went on the attack some of them got

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very vicious about you know asking questions why how could this

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happen just trying to keep it in the news cycle

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some accused her of just you know bad campaign management or worse

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it was really remarkable some of these statements that we've gotten some of

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the comments that they've made um to reporters or in other forums

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it so that to me is how it shook up the race

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meanwhile um republican congressman tom tiffney who's

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essentially unopposed um he's making a lot of hay of this as well

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so i guess i'm wondering right now as we record this on a thursday is this

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something where sera rad regas can kind of

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pull out of this tailspin you know where people i guess watch this and think

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hey that's a big deal but voters out there look at it and say

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you know i'm actually not so worried by that there's a legitimate question

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there because there's one tendency to think that oh well this is going to

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evaporate all of our support uh i was at farm tech days in

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stratford on tuesday and i ran into a gentleman who

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said that his wife had already cast her absentee ballot ballots are already out

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and coming back for sera rad regas and i asked him well does this

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change your perception of whether that's a vote that you would have wanted to

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make again he said absolutely not my number one concern is whether this

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means she'll have enough money to do what she needs to do to beat tom tiffany and

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win so this didn't change that particular voters

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perspective last night i was in ozaki county which is

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part of the old wow county it's one of those classic cherry red republican

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areas that is shifting more and more blue lighter red every time and they had a

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packed room and they had a straw poll all the members got a straw as they

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walked in the door and they had the glasses in the back of the room so the

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old-fashioned you see how your neighbor votes

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sera rad regas won the straw poll in ozaki county that was on a night where

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francesca hong was the speaker she was in the room walking by

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the jars of straw she came in second but sera rad regas still won and some of

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the same rhetoric came from the voters i talked to there

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and these are core democratic county members they're they're proud to pay

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their dues and get their straw to put in the basket for

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for sera rad regas saying well my number one concern is whether she'll have

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enough money and the campaign finance reports weren't fully out at that time

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and right now it does not look good for her being able to get her message out

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at all so that double whammy of it's the negative news cycles

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and she can't get her own message through really does call into question what

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happens over the next week especially as we know the market poll is

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in the field or about to be in the field which will really inform and persuade

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a lot of voters who are going to play follow the leader

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who is the most electable who has momentum and if she had it before and

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sees lost it now can she regain it so she is clearly looking

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to regain it i mean it's not something where she just folded

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after this press conference she made a point of saying this campaign is

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moving forward which i got to admit when i walked into that press

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conference i was not expecting that level of severity and so when she brought

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that up i thought oh what what is going on here

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um but like that she's it seems like she's trying to kind of

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prime the pump you know make sure that uh that

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nothing nothing to see here folks we're running a campaign we're winning

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straw polls we haven't add up in the air look at the ad i look good in this ad

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it's it you could imagine me in a general election

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we're writing the ship on these fundraising numbers

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um rich like what's the problem with that i guess

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why might that not work well writing the ship

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with a month or so to go until the primary right when candidates are

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generally trying to put as much money into getting their name out as possible

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that's the problem um so her campaign and and uh

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Sarah Rodriguez they both seem pretty uh committed to staying in this and

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they've raised a lot of money you know or they've been doing a lot of

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campaigning they've been working with the owners to some

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extent over the years so there's people who have already

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committed to her candidacy i honestly have no idea

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what will happen next i have seen speculation speculation online that

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well if she can clear the primary the democratic money will come no big

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deal but it's just maybe the worst timing for this sort of uh

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news to come out from your campaign if you're trying to win a nomination

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yeah i mean it does strike me that it is kind of a

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multiplayer effect with the problems she faces

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she could make a bigger case uh about why she's the candidate

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uh you know drive the message with these tv ads

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the problem is you she just can't afford them like that the money is a serious

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problem for her in terms of being able to

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to hit on that message and that could compound you know can

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will donors continue to give her money she says they are since monday

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monday uh that they've gotten more money but i think we have to see those

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reports before we can just kind of take their word for it

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at this point in the cycle well shod one of the things that's interesting is

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we've gotten all the emails every one of the other candidates says that

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this benefits them yeah and they're all trying to reframe this as now it's a

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two-person primary and it's not the same two people in every given case

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it's not even a clear front runner of who each one of them thinks is the other

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major candidate that's out there but joe brannon says this absolutely

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revitalizes his his odds of winning that people are now looking for a backup

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centrist moderate with executive experience and

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talking about his experience with the d.o.a. kelter roys was saying this absolutely

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gives people a chance to look at her candidacy again and gives her momentum

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and ela berns to the same thing and francesca hong just calmly just says

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i've got a grassroots campaign that keeps growing and more and more people

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see why she's a favorite for a lot of them but the question for you is do you

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see any one of them that can actually claim to be able to take the most

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advantage from this i think that's a pretty open discussion here

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and especially within fundraising numbers we're going to get into it does

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seem like when you mention the two candidate race

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saw that term a couple times in their statements today

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it is it is somebody plus francesca hong you know like they have sort of

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conceded that she has the left wing of this primary

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and that with sera red regas stumbling uh i mandela barns and the person who

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can occupy that other lane or uh joe brannon or you know kelter roys they

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all seem to think that they are in that non francesca hong

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lane rich what kind of clues did we get from the fundraising numbers today

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everybody had to report their numbers sera red regas all the candidates

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for governor including tom tiffany the republican candidate for governor

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what did we learn in terms of how much they raised in the first half of this

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year yeah so this is the period between january

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first and uh june 30th i've got my cheat sheet here

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um the two top fundraisers were mandela barns and francesca hong so

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barns raised around eight hundred forty thousand dollars in that period

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hong raised around seven hundred nine thousand dollars in that period

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but the others weren't too far behind so joe brannon

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brought in around six hundred sixty six thousand

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dollars rod regas uh raised around five hundred sixty two

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thousand dollars with a big asterisk there

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um not with the report but because of outstanding deaths and other things

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um and uh kelter roys raised around five hundred twenty

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seven thousand dollars so that's them's the numbers

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okay so uh a delayed answer to your question i think they would look at that

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and mandela barns would say in fact i'm the candidate who can benefit from

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this and and you know and i'm the one who goes

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against francesca hong kelter roys and joe brannon would say

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actually our reports are pretty good and we didn't lose the 2022 senate race so

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you know pick us pick us um so how about cash on hand

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you know this money raised is nice but it is july and you need money to get to

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this august primary yeah the one i want to get out

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of the way right away is sera rut regas' campaign said it had

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around thirty five thousand dollars in cash on hand at the end of june

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that is a big problem um and also just to note they're

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campaign reported around a hundred and fifty thousand or so in outstanding

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debt so that would you know theoretically go against

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whatever money she raises but uh i'm no expert with that

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so francesca hong in terms of cash on hand four hundred eleven thousand dollars

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kelter roys around four hundred six thousand dollars and joe brannon had

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around three hundred sixty thousand dollars

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one thing that was interesting to me is that

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you know democratic milwaukee uh county executive david crawley he dropped out

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of the race last week and he still had more cash on hand

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than mandela berns crawley had three hundred fifteen thousand dollars

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barns ended the june with two hundred four thousand dollars so

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pretty interesting numbers zak as you hear the cash

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numbers uh what do you think their interpretation of those would be i mean

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do you hear a clear front runner just in terms of how much money they have in

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the bank it's how much money they have in the bank and

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how much is already committed to ads going out the door and whether that's

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enough to actually change the position that they're in

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i asked francesca hong about this last night i said what should viewers or

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voters take from these campaign reports how should they parse

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these numbers and she said the thing to look at of course favoring her campaign

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he's she's figured to favor her campaign is that it should be

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how many voters have given how much have they given

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and she claims she has the most support from wisconsin that she has the broadest

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support from new people coming into this electoral politics and that

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some of the other comparisons are some of these other candidates are more

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reliant relying on twenty thousand dollar max

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donors that are tapped out that can't give any more money

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but i think the bigger question going forward is how any of them compared to

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tom tiffany and rich i'm sure you've got the numbers on him and those are

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really striking in comparison to what we just talked about

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yeah to say the least um i'll just toss both the uh the raised and the cash on

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hand so during the first six months of this year

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tom tiffany raised eight point seven million dollars

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i mean that's light years beyond um what all the other them

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what all the dams in the race have uh raised

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and he also has six million dollars oh excuse me

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of the money that tom tiffany reported raising um six million of that came

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from transfers and at the same time uh GOP mega donors

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dick and elizabeth uline and diane hendrichs gave about six million

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dollars to the wisconsin gop so they're on

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they're able to do those unlimited transfers but uh tom tiffany

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he's spent a ton and he has six uh he's got more money on hand right now

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than all of the other dams combined uh per the math i did

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you know we just when you look at the democratic fundraising as a whole

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those are not huge numbers in wisconsin um it kind of struck me

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this whole campaign that if one of these candidates had

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a big donor on their side who was willing to throw some money into a pack and

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run some ads on their behalf god that that could seal the deal

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and um lo and behold somebody is running a big

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two million dollar ad for or against one of the candidates

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it's uh targeting fritch hisco hong basically calling her

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super liberal uh too liberal for wisconsin

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but that is running ahead of democratic primary in democratic markets of mil

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walkie and madison by a republican group

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zach what's going on there well this is a similar group that's been

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playing in a lot of these democratic primaries trying to get a more liberal

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socialist progressive type candidate on the ballot that they think will be

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easier to defeat in november it's a playbook that they've seen work in a

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couple of races and fail and a few others francesco hong talked about that she

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said she's more than happy to have them advertised for her she thinks she's

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still the best candidate to win in the fall uh obviously the other democrats

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are bringing alarm bells about that saying if this is who tom tiffany wants to

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face then democrat uh democratic voters should be thinking twice about that

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but i think the last thing that we should be talking about here is the democratic

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primary last year said they were going to raise money for

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the contenders whatever came through would have one of those big lump

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transfers and what really stood out in this they've only got a couple million

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dollars so they have not they're not sitting on six or ten million waiting

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to dump into whoever wins this we're used to them being the juggernaut

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yeah now all suddenly the the stage gop has united it's mega donors and

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they're sitting on a lot of cash yeah so this will be a wide open race

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whoever comes through this primary there will be a lot of ground need to be caught

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up to to raise funds for the fall and i understand why they did it why they

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kind of held their money through this period

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but you gotta wonder if uh in the future somebody will question

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why they didn't attack tom tiffany while he ran millions of dollars worth of ads

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over the course of this summer it's an open question i mean we'll definitely

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watch it and uh may have the answer in a few months

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that's all the time we have for today thanks for joining us our colleague

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anya vin wagtendank we'll be back next week

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this has been inside wisconsin politics be sure to follow us on pbswisconsin.org

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wpr.org youtube or wherever you get your podcasts