I want to like Sara Rodriguez

Wisconsin Democrats vote for a gubernatorial candidate on August 11th and we really need to get this right.

Tony Evers and Sara Rodriguez celebrate on election night, 2022 - Tony Evers via CC by 2.0

Monday was an interesting day. Slow Boring announced a slate of midterm candidates pragmatic individuals should donate to if they want to sustain Democratic success¹. These include candidates running for the House, Senate, state assemblies, and state governor.

For Wisconsin, Yglesias said:

Rodriguez is the sitting lieutenant governor, running in a crowded August primary to succeed the retiring Governor Tony Evers. After almost two decades, Democrats are at the one-yard line of winning back a trifecta, but there’s a real risk they’ll blow it. Rodriguez’s rivals include former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes and State Representative Francesca Hong. After all the work that has been done to flip control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and get new, fair state legislative maps, Democrats need to nominate their strongest general-election candidate.

On the same day, Rodriguez announced she fired her campaign manager ‘over serious mismanagement’ of this campaign’s finances.

Barnes lost in the 2022 Senate Election (the same night Tony Evers and Sara Rodriguez won), and I can’t waste a vote on someone who can’t win in tougher environments than 2026 will likely be. 2028 lurks on the horizon. Hong is the Democratic Socialist based out of Madison, and as much as I love Madison, I just don’t see a path to making this work like Mamdani in New York City.

New York City is not Wisconsin. We are a purple state that has voted for Trump twice in his three elections. Evers has succeeded, although as a less favorable governor than other “out-of-power” governors where the state assembly is controlled by the other party and the governor’s ability is limited to 1) effective management and 2) vetoes of nonsensical bills². But Wisconsin Democrats can smell blood in the water after successfully flipping the Wisconsin Supreme Court, breaking a supermajority in the Senate, and leaving the GOP State Assembly captain-less as Robin Vos retires. Some people want to go for broke and get “everything” in one shot.

I don’t. I think we have witnessed enough thermostatic opinion to know that we don’t need massive change. We need durable change. Changes that can outlast single governors or campaigns. If we get this majority, and that’s still an if, we need to prioritize what we accomplish and have patience instead of knee-jerk reactions.

State politics are important

As a college student in Madison, I went from a disillusioned voter who felt no control over anything to a confident voter with direct access to candidates. The key was forgetting about national politics and diving into the local jurisdictions.

The incredible thing about local elections is that there’s not much the national party brand can do. Local issues are local; while they can share themes, candidates need to take positions that just don’t matter in Washington D.C., New York City, or Lubbock, TX. This is how we can have bleeding-heart liberals starting to question public school financing in Madison.

State politics sit in the middle, but has gravitated towards the national environment as the Trump Administration threatens entire states. We can’t ignore it and I want my governor to protect Wisconsin.

At the same time, I want my governor to focus on Wisconsin.

• Are we potentially going to spend up to $2,000,000,000 on a highway expansion project near Madison? How much will taxes go up because of that?

• Should we consider a constitutional amendment to allow for a Land Value Tax system for municipalities struggling to maintain levies for budgets?

• Why does the Office of the Commissioner of Railroads selectively enforce changing street infrastructure only when cars stop on railroads because of ‘pedestrian crossings’, but not any other railroad intersection where cars stop on the railroads, of their own accord?

• Does coal really need to be our top energy source? And who’s going to pay for the AI Data Center infrastructure bets, the taxpayers or the businesses that stand to profit?

These are my pet projects. I would love to hear a candidate address them³. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

So I can get on board with creating a public option and expanding Medicaid access. These are within the realm of doable, as they have passed in red states. We are significantly behind.

I want to see what utility reform looks like. Housing reform leaves much to be desired, but I like cell phone-free schools. I also know that I don’t speak for the median Wisconsin voter, but Rodriguez did by winning a red state assembly district in 2020.

I certainly don’t want a property tax freeze, as Tom Tiffany suggests, because that would kill local funding for cities. And even though Hong lists so many buzzwords to try and get me on board⁴, I know that we would blow right through the $2,500,000,000 surplus that all candidates are antsy to spend. Additionally, if Democrats don’t get a full majority the agenda is dead on arrival. States that are bluer than Wisconsin can feel free to try and make this work, showing a model of how “progressive government” can work for the people. But Wisconsin should not be that testing ground, in the case that it’s a failure and it puts another decade of GOP politics in play. There’s a Senate election in 2028 and Ron Johnson needs to be gone ASAP.

I’m giving Sara about a week

This campaign manager firing is going to be in the news cycle for a bit. I think it’s critical for leaders to be accountable and transparent. She seems to be doing that, and you can listen to her press conference on the topic here.

But people opposed to Rodriguez will say this was necessary to release before an upcoming Marquette primary poll and campaign finance deadlines. Without those deadlines, this could have been withheld like Mitch McConnell’s health. Some are suggesting inflated finances forced David Crowley out early and that mismanagement like this could lead to poor executive management as governor. I’m willing to let it slide, knowing that people you trust can mislead or flat-out lie rather than tell an inconvenient truth. But I wonder how many Slow Boring readers scratched their heads this morning reconciling the donation recommendation.

If Rodriguez continues to gain endorsements, I will probably donate to her campaign before the August 11^th primary. I do think she has the best chance. That being said, my mind is open and I would love to hear from other Wisconsinites or pragmatists on where dollars should be flowing.

This poll is proudly not sponsored by Polymarket

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More from Counting Cranes

1. You should really consider donating to these campaigns. I appreciate everything the Slow Boring team has done to help Rebecca Cooke in WI-03 and she is set up well for November after a great push from Matt & Co.

2. Examples include Laura Kelly of Kansas and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, both Democratic governors with over 60% approval rating

3. The last topic is a campaign differentiator, but the others ones not so much

4. "Transit-Oriented Development”, “Safe, Complete Streets”, “Close the estate tax loophole”, “Zoning Reform”, “Guaranteed paid leave” - all found here