{"id":768756,"date":"2026-07-17T18:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768756\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T18:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:30:14","slug":"wisconsin-lt-gov-sara-rodriguez-drops-out-of-the-governors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768756\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez drops out of the governor\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, a Democrat, said Friday that she was dropping out of the governor\u2019s race, just days after her campaign discovered major inaccuracies related to its financial reporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAs we have continued to dig into our financial reports, it has become clear that there are issues that would be an ongoing distraction, not just for this campaign, but for the primary and for Wisconsin. This race is too important to let that happen,\u201d Rodriguez said in a video posted to X<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot, in good conscience, allow these questions to become a cloud over an election that Democrats need to win. Wisconsin deserves better than that,\u201d Rodriguez added. <\/p>\n

The decision from Rodriguez, who had been among the front-runners in the Democratic primary, roils a wide-open race for governor in the perennial battleground state.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Rodriguez\u2019s campaign announced it had discovered \u201cserious mismanagement and inaccuracies\u201d in its campaign finance reports, leading to the firing <\/a>of campaign manager Kara Spencer. Among the errors were duplicated contributions, which inflated how much money the campaign had raised and had on hand.<\/p>\n

The development prompted calls from several of her Democratic opponents to end her campaign, with many slamming it as \u201cdisqualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as significantly, the discovery of the errors led Rodriguez to learn that her campaign had <\/a>only $200,000 in cash on hand, she told reporters Monday.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez had been among the leading candidates in the Democratic primary to succeed Gov. Tony Evers, who is retiring after serving two terms.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d placed first earlier this summer in an unscientific straw poll<\/a> at the Wisconsin Democratic Party\u2019s convention. And two high-profile candidates who\u2019d dropped out of the primary in recent weeks \u2014 former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley \u2014 had endorsed her campaign.<\/p>\n

Other candidates who remain in the race include state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist who has unexpectedly seen a surge of momentum in recent weeks<\/a>, and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a progressive who narrowly lost the 2022 Senate race in the state. Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary, and state Sen. Kelda Roys are also competing for the Democratic nomination. <\/p>\n

The winner of the Aug. 11 primary is all but certain to face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is backed by President Donald Trump, in the general election.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez\u2019s exit sparked concern among some Wisconsin Democrats that Hong had a clearer path to the nomination and would be too far to the left to win in November in the swing state. Some were eager to see Crowley re-enter the primary. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an effort to get Crowley back in the race,\u201d said one Wisconsin Democratic operative who requested anonymity to speak freely about a fluid situation. \u201cA potential endorsement from Evers has been one of the things used to try to sweeten that deal.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSome believe Crowley would make the strongest general election candidate following the recent Sara Rodriguez mess and then obviously with her dropping out,\u201d the operative added. \u201cCrowley is seriously considering it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Spokespersons for Crowley and Evers didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

Hughes, who dropped out of the race last month and endorsed Rodriguez, was among those calling on Crowley to restart his campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201c@DavidCCrowley get back in this race!\u201d she wrote on X.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tiffany quickly seized on the shakeup in the Democratic primary. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sara Rodriguez dropout, followed by the latest developments involving @GovEvers says it all,\u201d Tiffany wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cEven Tony Evers is acknowledging that Mandela Barnes and Francesca Hong are too radical for Wisconsin. At least we can all agree that socialism would destroy our state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hong told ABC affiliate WISN<\/a> in Milwaukee that Evers \u201ccan feel free to endorse if he chooses\u201d but that \u201call Wisconsinites deserve to have a voice in this race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes wrote in a post on X<\/a> that he had \u201cimmense respect\u201d for Rodriguez and directly addressed her supporters, saying that \u201cthere\u2019s a place for you in my campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her part, Roys said it was<\/a> \u201ctime to unite the party,\u201d while Brennan posted<\/a> that he was \u201cthe candidate who will get big things done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reliable public polling in the race has been sparse. A Marquette University Law School survey from March<\/a> showed Hong with 14% and Barnes with 11%, with no other candidates receiving more than 3%, and 65% saying they were undecided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, a Democrat, said Friday that she was dropping out of the governor\u2019s race,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-768756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}