Last week, Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez secured a significant boost in her bid for the 2026 Governor’s race by clinching the endorsement of the statewide union AFSCME.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Rodriguez “received a key endorsement … from a statewide union” as she seeks the Democratic nomination. In a post on X, she noted: “As the daughter of a proud union teaching assistant…this endorsement from AFSCME hits home.”
AFSCME or American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is a trade union for public employees in the United States. The union pushes for expanded government via public sector jobs, higher public-sector salaries, and expanded benefits, even when state or local budgets are already strained.
Rodriguez is running on a platform that emphasizes her background as a nurse, public health administrator, and current lieutenant governor. Her campaign casts her as a candidate who claims to understand “frontline work” and the struggles of everyday families. (RELATED: Wisconsin To See Another Increase In Utility Prices)
Among her campaign points: expanding access to affordable health care and strengthening public health infrastructure and focusing on labor protections, given the union endorsement.
Her campaign also claims she is the “candidate best positioned to take on Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany and win” in the general election. Rep. Tom Tiffany formally launched his campaign, emphasizing freezing property taxes, protecting farmland, and fixing economic decline.
The endorsement from AFSCME comes amid a stacked Democrat primary race following Tony Evers’s decision not to seek reelection. (RELATED: Wisconsin School Report Met with Skepticism)
