Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez fired her campaign manager Sunday after an internal review uncovered serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings.
The Sara Rodriguez for Wisconsin campaign released a statement announcing the termination, effective immediately, just days before campaign finance reports are due on July 15th.
“The Sara Rodriguez for Wisconsin campaign has terminated its campaign manager, effective today, after discovering serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she prepared,” the campaign said. “An initial review found that the manager filed inaccurate and incomplete campaign finance reports. The campaign will be in contact with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission first thing Monday morning to ensure the inaccuracies are corrected.
The moment Sara learned of these inaccuracies, she acted swiftly and decisively removed her. The campaign will continue to build support to win in August and beat Tom Tiffany in November.”
Rodriguez did not explain the nature of the mismanagement or misreporting issues that led to the firing. While campaign finance issues are relatively common and easily remedied through paperwork corrections, it is highly unusual for a high-profile campaign figure to be fired over them. This suggests that the issues are not mere oversight, but are potentially criminal in nature and necessitated a quick response to get ahead of discrepancies that would be discovered when the publicly-available reports are filed this week.
Rodriguez is trying to make up a big polling deficit to socialists Francesca Hong and Mandela Barnes on August 11th Democratic primary for governor. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is quietly throwing its support behind her to ward off. Socialist takeover of the party, highlighted by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropping out and endorsing her last week.
