Republican candidate for attorney general Eric Toney on Friday urged Attorney General Josh Kaul to immediately open an investigation into Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez’s campaign finance reports, stating that her abrupt exit from the Democratic primary for governor does not exempt her from scrutiny.
In a press release issued Friday, Toney said Wisconsinites “have seen enough” from Rodriguez’s campaign this week and that the matter “needs to be investigated for possible campaign finance violations.”
“You don’t get a free pass just because you dropped out,” Toney said. “Voters need to know that this will never happen again. Election integrity matters, and the sitting Lt. Governor should be treated the same as everyone else, Republican or Democrat.”
Toney, the current Fond du Lac County DA, who worked with the Wisconsin DOJ Public Integrity Unit, argued that Kaul possesses the resources and skills to conduct a thorough review and must set aside party politics to do so.
The call follows Rodriguez’s announcement earlier Friday that she was suspending her campaign for governor. The move came days after she fired her campaign manager upon discovering that financial reports had overstated contributions by hundreds of thousands of dollars, leaving the campaign with an unknown amount of money in the bank in the weeks before the August primary.
Toney cited Wisconsin statute § 11.1201, which makes it a Class I felony to intentionally submit a false report or statement to the commission when the figure exceeds $100 or does not involve a specific figure. He noted that campaign committees must report the date, full name, and street address of every contribution and that intentionally violating itemization requirements can also trigger felony liability under related statutes.
Reviews of Rodriguez’s filings, according to the release, found she may have overstated donations by at least $137,500 in the second half of 2025 alone. Reporters also identified dozens of duplicate donor entries in her January filing — the same donor, the same amount, and the same date reported twice, with only minor formatting differences. The July report raised many additional questions.
Rodriguez ended her campaign earlier today but remains the sitting lieutenant governor, Toney emphasized. Wisconsin voters, he said, deserve to know whether the reporting discrepancies resulted from criminal activity or incompetence.
