>> After a Monday news conference where she fired
her campaign manager for messing up the financial
reports but still vowed to stay in the race,
Democratic primary candidate for governor
Sarah Rodriguez, today dropped out. She said the
fundraising reporting mess would be too big of a
distraction. Senior political reporter Zac
Schultz is here with details on. Hi, Zac.
>> Hello, Fred. >> So this has been almost
like a slow motion train wreck. Exactly what
happened. >> It's been a back and
forth all week. Last week we were talking about all
the momentum she had. The candidates that had dropped
out were endorsing her. I was in touch with the
campaign to see where she be out in the field this
week. We were going to touch base with all the
Democratic candidates, and said, well, we're still
figuring out that schedule. Well, by Sunday, they'd
fired her campaign manager. By Monday, she has a press
conference saying, I'm in the race, but fundraising
is a little weaker. We talked to the other
candidates. They're like, authority. It says you can
run things and you don't have any oversight of your
own campaign. Her campaign finance sheets come and
show she's broke and deeply in debt. Then she makes
another press conference to say that she's got all this
money and then quickly says, nope, sorry, that was an
error as well. And now she's out. So it's been
back and forth, people really trying to figure out
where is the truth. And when she says it was a
distraction, she's 100% most honest thing that's
been said about the campaign all week, is this
was dominating all the headlines and would have if
she would have stayed in this race.
>> She was considered a frontrunner, though.
>> Absolutely. When you were looking at if you
looked at that Democratic primary in terms of lanes,
there was clearly Francesca Hong in the more
progressive far left lane. She had owned that for
quite a while in this race, and it was a question of
who could coalesce more of that centrist moderate
candidacy. And Sara Rodriguez was taking that
over. And now that it's gone, it's a question of
who takes advantage of that. Where do those voters go?
>> So now Governor Evers is reportedly talking about
backing an effort to draw David Crowley back into the
race. Why? What happened there with him?
>> Well, David Crowley dropped out almost a couple
of weeks ago, saying it was clear he wasn't going to
have a lane it was assumed he was contesting with
Rodriguez saw her momentum and knew he couldn't get
their fundraising reports that they just were filed
so that he actually has plenty of cash on hand, a
lot more than her. Significantly, if her
transparent from the beginning, there's a
question of whether he would have dropped out
because he would have been significantly ahead of her.
There are other centrists that are saying, hey, bring
him back. He's the next best person to take that
mantle with Rodriguez out of the race. And now it's a
question of whether he will do that and what will that
look like? >> Yeah. Who else stands to
gain? >> Well, Joel Brennan
clearly says this is his moment to shine and people
to hear his name for the first time. If you're not
finely tuned into this race. Kelda Roys Mandela Barnes.
They all claim that they can benefit from this
Francesca Hong to a degree, because there there were
people that backed that just want a Democrat who
can win. And now she may have a more open race all
the way to winning this primary. If her main
contender from the centrist candidacy falls apart.
>> So meanwhile, Republican candidate Tom Tiffany not
only has gobs of money comparatively, but this
must be great for the GOP. >> Oh, they absolutely love
this. Any time you see the other party falling apart
on their own mistakes missteps, then it's good
news for Tom Tiffany, because he's had this whole
opportunity all summer long to run positive ads. He's
got a ton of money in the bank, 2 million cash on
hand, pretty much all of that coming from
billionaires who have given to the party that have
given to him the billionaire loophole that
he came on our air and criticized a few months ago
he's now taking advantage of. But that's politics.
He's definitely in a much better position. I did ask
the Democratic candidates this week, can you overcome
that after this primary? And they said, absolutely.
Once we get past August, then we can start
contrasting the record that he tries to portray versus
his record attached to Trump.
>> Meanwhile, the Republicans are airing ads
talking about Francesca Hong. And what are they
doing there? >> Well, they're
technically they are negative ads, but they're
airing them in Madison, Milwaukee, 2 Francesca Hong
base in an attempt to rile them up. We've seen groups
play in Democratic primaries across the
country in an effort to boost what they view as a
weaker candidate, a more socialist, progressive
candidate. There are lots of statements in Francesca
Hong background that she owns that do not play well
according to centrist, or perhaps in a regular
contest in November. >> Have you ever seen
anything like this in your coverage of politics in
Wisconsin over the years? >> Not like this. We've
seen campaigns fall apart. We've seen campaigns run
out of money and be deep in debt. That's not new. It's
the the discord that it all came out and this back and
forth throughout the week. If this had come out in
February or March and those statements have been
corrected, she probably moved on because she still
had support this week. Just this week, talking to
people out in the field, she won the Ozaukee County
Democratic straw poll with Francesca Hong in the
audience. So the support was still there, but it was
clear that she could not change the message away
from her oversight of her own campaign to back to one