MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Democratic candidate for governor Sara Rodriguez said Monday that she discovered her campaign has hundreds of thousands of dollars less cash than she thought after campaign ads slated to run last week did not air because of unpaid invoices.
Rodriguez, the current lieutenant governor, announced late Sunday night that she had fired her campaign manager after discovering contributions had been double-counted and expenses were undercounted, leading to her campaign having far less money than she thought.
Rodriguez, at a news conference surrounded by supporters, vowed to remain in the race.
“This campaign is going to move forward,” she said in the appearance at her campaign headquarters.
Rodriguez is in a competitive primary for Wisconsin’s open governor’s race against democratic socialist Francesca Hong, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and three others. The winner of the Aug. 11 primary will advance to the general election against Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, who faces only token primary opposition.
Last week Rodriguez announced a $1 million television ad campaign buy. But when the ads didn’t start running as she expected, Rodriguez said she began asking questions and discovered the problems in the campaign reports.
“I am hurt, angry and deeply disappointed by someone I trusted to run my campaign,” Rodriguez said of her fired campaign manager. “I was continually getting inaccurate reports from my campaign manager.”
Rodriguez’s next report covering money raised and spent over the first six months of the year is due on Wednesday.
Rodriguez said her campaign immediately notified the Wisconsin Ethics Commission on Monday and was working with them to correct the report filed in January that covers donations and expenditures made last year.
Rodriguez would not say exactly how much her filing was off by because the work to reconcile the books was ongoing. But she said her campaign had raised about $1 million and had about $200,000 cash on hand.
After she announced the $1 million ad buy last week, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropped out of the race and endorsed Rodriguez. Another former Democratic candidate, former state economic development director Missy Hughes, endorsed Rodriguez after she ended her campaign last month.
Democratic challenger Joel Brennan, a former top aide to Gov. Tony Evers, called the errors by Rodriguez’s campaign “disqualifying.” Evers has not endorsed anyone in the primary.
Rodriguez said she was being upfront about what happened.
“If I were trying to hide something I would be here today telling you about it,” she said at the news conference. “Most people are not going to stand in front of this many cameras and microphones to talk about fixing an error.”
