Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez announced she would continue to run for state governor after firing her campaign manager for inaccuracies in her campaign finance reports.
“This race is moving forward because the stakes are too high to sit it out,” Rodriguez said in a post on X yesterday.
Rodriguez said she fired her campaign manager July 12 “after discovering serious mismanagements and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she prepared” in a press conference posted on FOX6 News Milwaukee’s YouTube channel Monday.
Rodriguez said they are complying with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, which “oversees the administration of elections and ethics” according to their website, to fix the inaccuracies in the campaign reports.
Rodriguez also said that “there were hundreds of thousands of dollars less” than she initially thought.
While “the analysis is ongoing,” there was a “double counting of contributions,” which made it look like the campaign had raised more money than was actually raised. There was also a “failure to report certain expenses that had been paid,” according to Rodriguez.
The Wisconsin Ethics Commission currently reports a total of $3,104,048.51 raised for Rodriguez’s campaign.
Joel Brennan, a Democrat also running for governor of Wisconsin, said that Rodriguez “failed to answer” questions “about her campaign’s mismanagement,” and claimed she “failed to take responsibility for what unfolded on her campaign” in a statement posted on X.
Rodriguez said that she is “committed to full transparency” in a statement posted on X.
The Wisconsin primary election will be held on Aug. 11, and the general election will be held Nov. 3, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation.
