Wisconsin Democrats Allegedly Rigged Gubernatorial Primary to Defeat Hong
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez refuses to deny that her campaign paid Crowley to get out of the race and endorse her.
That sound you're not hearing? It's the absence of a full-throated denial from Democrats that the party apparently rigged Wisconsin's gubernatorial race in an attempt to steal control from voters and steer the outcome.
A damning October 23 Daily Wire report alleges that during Wisconsin's primary, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez didn't want to leave the decision up to voters, so she paid Crowley's campaign fund $250,000 and promised to give Crowley's wife a job in her administration. In exchange, Crowley agreed to drop out of the race and endorse Rodriguez. At the time, Socialist Francesca Hong was leading the pack. The hope was to consolidate voters who did not support Hong to defeat her in the primary.
Crowley pulled out of the primary on July 8 and went out of his way to indicate that dropping out was his own decision. He certainly didn't indicate any payoff.
"I want to be clear," Crowley said in a July 9 joint press conference with Rodriguez. "Nobody called me or anything like that to ask me to step out of this race. This race is about making sure that we do have the best candidate running in this race." Crowley was firm, saying there was "no establishment process. This is me making this decision in this race, to support Sara Rodriguez because I believe she is the best candidate."
What would Crowley and Rodriguez tell voters who say this is establishment party politics, all done to stop Francesca Hong? Crowley: "I want to be very clear; there was no establishment process." Rodriguez: "What I would ask people is to look my website. Look at what I've done." https://t.co/OxsXU58ALt
— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) July 9, 2026
The Daily Wire says that it learned about the deal from a Democrat operative who was "an advisor, familiar with the Rodriguez campaign's internal discussions." The advisor is not named. The Lakeland Times reports it has seen an affidavit signed by the advisor, verifying the claims.
In response, Crowley's team initially told Daily Wire, "We have no idea what you are talking about."
A few days later, with the scandal still rippling across the state, Crowley's campaign had its act together a bit more. Crowley's spokesman Philip Shulman told the Lakeland Times in a statement, "These claims are not true, and this never happened. This is yet another desperate attempt by a flailing campaign to make up lies about David and his family to try to distract from the real issues in this race like lowering costs, expanding healthcare access, and standing up to the corruption in DC."
Rodriguez ended up dropping out of the race July 17 after her troubling finance disclosure revealed her campaign was nearly broke and overextended. A day later, Crowley was back in the race.
No Denial
While Crowley took a few days to get a spokesperson to craft a denial, notice who is not talking at all—the lieutenant governor.
Rodriguez did not respond to a request for comment in Daily Wire's initial report, nor to requests for comment later from Lakeland Times or Restoration News. She won't engage with reporters, which leaves the question of payoffs to other campaigns unanswered.
Neither would Hong, who narrowly lost to Crowley, nor Mandela Barnes, who dropped out on July 30, respond to requests from Restoration News for comments. Joel Brennan, who lost in the primary, has also kept silent.
Democrats who hope to hold office in the future may fear being blackballed if they speak out, or they are too loyal to the party to publicly complain. But if this happened as described in the signed affidavit, they got the shaft and so did voters because the party put its powerful thumb on the scale.
The situation brings everything that got Crowley to the finish line into question. Milwaukee County election officials paused the ballot count, delaying results for hours during the August 11 primary. Knowing that Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, is on the ballot, and that his race was apparently the subject of Democratic interference, erodes voter confidence.
In recent weeks, Restoration News reported that Crowley's wife was hired by a nonprofit that gets funding from the county, around the same time he took the oath of office. Since then, Milwaukee’s budgets have sent more funding to the nonprofit. Her salary has not been disclosed on his financial forms. The murkiness surrounding finances and the fact that the position was created just as she was hired smells funky.
Knowing that Crowley apparently negotiated a sweet gig for his wife upon Rodriguez winning the governor's seat shows a pattern of getting her access to powerful positions. If true, both arrangements look like self-dealing, that is, using his authority to get a good job for his wife that will ultimately enrich his own household.
Whenever a politician has eyes on enriching his family, or stopping candidates in his own party, he is serving himself instead of serving the people.
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