(The Center Square) – The other candidates in Wisconsin’s race for governor say Sara Rodriguez’s fundraising scandal shows she should never be governor.
“Sara Rodriguez failed to answer many serious and mounting questions about her campaign’s mismanagement and, more importantly, failed to take responsibility for what unfolded on her campaign. Wisconsinites deserve competence and transparency, as well as a strong Democrat who can win in November,” Democrat Joel Brennan said in a statement.
Rodriguez on Sunday announced that she had fired her campaign manager after discovering “inaccurate and incomplete campaign finance reports.”
On Monday, Rodriguez said her campaign wrongly claimed it raised more than $1 million but in reality Rdriguez said she has just more than $200,000 cash-on-hand.
“How is this not disqualifying?,” Brennan asked.
Brennan is not the only Democrat pouncing on Rodriguez.
A spokeswoman for Mandela Barnes said Rodriguez only came forward after the scandal became public.
“She has repeatedly lied about raising millions to try and display false strength despite consistently polling in third, even in her own internals. A campaign this poorly mismanaged stands no chance against Tom Tiffany this fall,” the spokesperson said.
Republican candidate Tom Tiffany also said the fundraising scandal, and unanswered questions, show that Rodriguez should not be governor.
“‘Swift action’ = taking 6 months to discover your campaign was cooking the books. ‘Doing the right thing’ = finding out only after an ad buy you signed off on fell through,” Tiffany wrote on X. “If @saraforwi couldn’t keep track of her own campaign finances, she shouldn’t manage Wisconsin’s budget.”
A review of Rodriguez’s campaign finance reports shows dozens of donations that were counted twice. Many times, a donation would be counted under one name and address, then counted again under a slightly different name and address.
Rodriguez said she doesn’t know how that happened.
Rodriguez said she is not dropping out of the race and instead said the scandal proves that she is a leader.
“There are not many political leaders who would stand here today in front of, I don’t know, 12 cameras, and be as transparent and honest as I’m being, because I think that we owe that to the people of Wisconsin as elected leaders, and I think I owe that to my supporters when I found this error,” Rodriguez said.
