Sara 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 home stretch. This is inside
Wisconsin politics.
I'm Shawn Johnson here with Zac
Schultz and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire. Hey, guys.
Hello. So before we get 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 conference 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 that
our partners received, it looked accurate. I trusted
her to do the job that I had hired to to do that she
had done for her entire career. And I regret
placing my trust in that individual.
>> And Sara 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 million ad buy
is not going to happen. She just doesn'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. Zac, is that the impression you get? And my
next question is why? >> Absolutely. This has
changed everything. Just a week ago, we were talking
about the momentum Sara Rodriguez had with multiple
candidates dropping out, endorsing her. Could she
coalesce 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. 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 support her. 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 Roys or a Mandela Barnes or
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 home stretch 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 toward between the candidates, but it was very
muted. And then it got a little hotter. But this
just kind of, you know, scattered blood in the
water. And Democrats like Mandela, Barnes, Joel
Brennan, Kelda, Roys, 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 know, 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, it. 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, you
know, where people like us watch this and think, hey,
that's a big deal. But voters out there look at it
and say, you know, 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 can evaporate all of our
support. I was at Pharm 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 Sara 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
and win. 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 a straw
poll. All the members got a straw as they walked in the
door, and they had the glasses in the back of the
room. So the old fashioned, you see how your neighbor
votes. Sara Rodriguez won the straw poll in 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 Sara Rodriguez still
won in. 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 for
Sara 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 it?
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 got to 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, oh, what is going on here? But like, she, it
seems like she's trying to kind of prime the pump, you
know, make sure that that nothing, nothing to see
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. It's you can imagine me in
a general election. We're writing the ship on these
fundraising numbers. Rich. Like, what's the problem
with that? I guess why might that not work?
>> Well, righting 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 Sara Rodriguez, they both seem pretty
committed to staying in this. And they've raised a
lot of money. You know, they've been doing a lot of
campaigning. They've been extent over the years. So
there's people who have already committed to her
candidacy. I honestly have no idea what will happen
next. I have seen speculation, 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, to hit home
that message. And that could compound, you know,
will donors continue to give her money? She says
they are since Monday, Monday 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, 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 frontrunner 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
Kelda Roys was saying, this absolutely gives people a
chance to look at her candidacy again and gives
her momentum. Mandela 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 can actually claim to be able to take
the most advantage from this?
open discussion here, and especially with the
fundraising numbers that we're going to get into, it
does seem like when you mentioned the two candidate
race 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 know, Kelda Roys, they all seem to think that
they are in that non Francesca Hong lane. Rich.
What kind of clues did we get from the fundraising
numbers today? Everybody had to report their numbers.
Sara Rodriguez all the candidates for governor,
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. The two top fundraisers were
Mandela Barnes and Francesca Hong. So Barnes
raised around $840,000 in that period. Hong raised
around $709,000 in that period, but the others
weren't too far behind. So Joel Brennan brought in
around $666,000. Rodriguez raised around $562,000,
with a big asterisk there. Not with the report, but
because of outstanding debts and other things. And
Kelda Ruiz raised around $527,000. 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 and, you
know, I'm the one who goes against Francesca Hong.
Kelda. Roys. And Joel Brennan would say, actually
our reports are pretty good and we didn't lose the 2022
Senate race. So, you know, 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
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, you know,
theoretically go against whatever money she raises.
But I'm no expert with that. So Francesca Hong in terms
of cash on hand, $411,000 Kelda Roys around $406,000.
And Joel Brennan 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. >> Zac, as you hear the
cash numbers, what do you think their interpretation
of those would be? I mean, do you hear a clear
frontrunner 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 going 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 the
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 reliable, 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
compared 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 >> Yeah, to say the least,
I'll just toss both the the raised and the cash on hand.
So during the first six months of this year, Tom
Tiffany raised $8.7 million. I mean, that's light years
beyond what all the other dem or what all the Dems in
the race have raised of the money that Tom Tiffany reported
raising, 6 million of that came from transfers. And at
the same time, GOP Mega-donors Dick and
Elizabeth Uihlein and Diane Hendricks gave about $6
million to the Wisconsin GOP. So they're 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 PAC and run some ads
on their behalf, 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. Zac,
what's going on there? >> Well, this 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 are ringing alarm bells about that,
saying, if this is who Tom Tiffany wants to face, then
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
contenders. 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 6 or 10 million
waiting to dump into whoever wins this.
the juggernaut. And now all suddenly the state GOP has
united its mega-donors and they're sitting on a lot of
cash. >> Yeah. So 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 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 got to
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
Wagtendonk. We'll be back next week. This has been
inside Wisconsin politics. wisconsin.org. WPR.org,
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