Inside Wisconsin Politics

Sara Rodriguez's money woes shake up the race for governor

Shawn Johnson:
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.

Zac Schultz:
Hello.

Shawn Johnson:
So before we get started with our discussion here, let’s play a clip from Sara 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 Sara Rodriguez had to say.

Sara Rodriguez:
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 her to do, that she had done for her entire career. And I regret placing my trust in that individual.

Shawn Johnson:
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?

Zac Schultz:
Absolutely. This has changed everything. Just a week ago, we were talking about the momentum that 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 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 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. 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?

Shawn Johnson:
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 it 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 Sara Rodriguez’s campaign, but everybody else’s?

Rich Kremer:
Well, what we saw was, it was a Democratic primary that was starting to get a little heated in terms of attacks between the candidates, but it was very muted. And then it got a little hotter. But this just kind of 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, asking questions: Why, how could this happen? Just trying to keep it in the news cycle. Some accused her of just 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. 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.

Shawn Johnson:
So, I guess I’m wondering right now, as we record this on a Thursday, is this something where Sara Rodriguez can kind of pull out of this tailspin? 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.

Zac Schultz:
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 Farm 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.

Shawn Johnson:
Interesting.

Zac Schultz:
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. And 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 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?

Shawn Johnson:
So she is clearly 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 it seems like she’s trying to kind of prime the pump, make sure 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, you can imagine me in a general election, we’re righting the ship on these fundraising numbers. Rich, like, what’s the problem with that? I guess, why might that not work?

Rich Kremer:
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 they’ve been doing a lot of campaigning, they’ve been with donors to some extent over the years. So there’s, are people who have already committed to her candidacy. I honestly have no idea what will happen next. I have seen 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.

Shawn Johnson:
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, 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 hit home that message. And that could compound. Will donors continue to give her money? She says they are, since Monday, 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.

Zac Schultz:
Well, Shawn, 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. 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 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 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?

Shawn Johnson:
Ah, I think that’s a pretty 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 somebody plus Francesca Hong. They have sort of conceded that she has the left wing of this primary, and that with Sara Rodriguez stumbling: I, Mandela Barnes, and the person who can occupy that other lane, or Joel Brennan or 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, including Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor. What did we learn in terms of how much they raised in the first half of this year?

Rich Kremer:
Yeah. So this is the period between January 1 and June 30 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 Roys raised around $527,000. So that’s, them’s the numbers.

Shawn Johnson:
OK, 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 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 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.

Rich Kremer:
Yeah. The one I want to get out of the way right away is Sara Rodriguez’s 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, 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 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 June with $204,000. So, pretty interesting numbers.

Shawn Johnson:
Zac, as you hear the cash numbers, what do you think their interpretation of those would be? Do you hear a clear frontrunner just in terms of how much money they have in the bank?

Zac Schultz:
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 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 compare 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 just talked about.

Rich Kremer:
Yeah, to say the least. I’ll just toss out both 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 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 able to do those unlimited transfers. But Tom Tiffany he spent a ton and he’s got more money on hand right now than all of the other Dems combined, per the math I did.

Shawn Johnson:
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, God, 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 the Democratic primary in Democratic markets of Milwaukee and Madison, by a Republican group. Zac, what’s going on there?

Zac Schultz:
Well, this is a 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 ringing alarm bells about that, saying if this is who Tom Tiffany wants to face, then 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 they said they were going to raise money for the contenders

Shawn Johnson:
The party.

Zac Schultz:
so 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’re not sitting on $6 or $10 million

Shawn Johnson:
Right.

Zac Schultz:
waiting to dump into whoever wins this

Shawn Johnson:
We’re used to them being the juggernaut

Zac Schultz:
Yeah.

Shawn Johnson:
and now all of a suddenly the state GOP has united its mega-donors and they’re sitting on a lot of cash.

Zac Schultz:
Yeah. So this will be a wide open race. Whoever comes through this primary, there will be a lot of ground that needs to be caught up to raise funds for the fall.

Shawn Johnson:
And I understand why they did it, why they kind of held their money through this period. But you’ve 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. 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 will be back next week. This has been Inside Wisconsin Politics. Be sure to follow us on pbswsconsin.org, wpr.org, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.