Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez suspended her gubernatorial campaign on Friday, just days after reporting “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies” in campaign finance filings and accusing her former campaign manager of vastly overstating her fundraising totals.
“I am deeply hurt and betrayed by what happened,” Rodriguez said in a video message posted on social media. “I cannot in good conscience let these questions become a cloud over an election that Democrats need to win. Wisconsin deserves better than that.”
The Democrat’s exit from the race comes less than a month before the state’s Aug. 11 primary.
Today I'm suspending my campaign. Thank you to everyone who believed and showed up for this campaign. Let’s keep fighting – together – to protect the Wisconsin we love. pic.twitter.com/177LrrLD56
— Sara Rodriguez (@saraforwi) July 17, 2026
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Rodriguez’s decision to drop out also kickstarted a Democratic effort to convince David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, to reenter the race, one person familiar with the situation told NOTUS. Gov. Tony Evers is considering supporting the movement to get Crowley back into the race, the source said.
Crowley, who endorsed Rodriguez after dropping out of the race last week, is “strongly considering” it, according to a second person directly familiar with his thinking.
A crowded field remains for the party’s nomination — former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys and former state Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan are all still vying for a spot on November’s ballot.
Whoever wins is likely to face Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is leading the Republican field.
The financial misconduct allegations that roiled Rodriguez’s campaign were first revealed over the weekend, when the lieutenant governor issued a statement revealing she had fired her campaign manager, Kara Spencer, after discovering discrepancies in her campaign finance reports.
Rodriguez said at a press conference Monday that she first knew something was wrong when television ads for her campaign that were supposed to air last week did not run.
“I was given excuses from my campaign manager that did not make sense,” Rodriguez said after confronting Spencer about the unpaid invoices.
“There was clearly a double-counting of contributions that inflated how much money we had raised,” Rodriguez said, while blaming her campaign manager for the situation. “There was also a significant failure to report certain expenses that had been paid.”
The discrepancy between the reported fundraising total and the actual amount in her campaign’s coffers amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, Rodriguez said. As of Monday, the campaign had a total of roughly $200,000 on hand.
A campaign lawyer for Rodriguez has reached out to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission to report the situation, the lieutenant governor added.
“Part of being a leader is taking swift action, doing the right thing and being as honest as possible when there’s a problem,” Rodriguez said in her video message Friday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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