On July 9, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley stood in front of reporters to explain why he'd dropped out of the race for Wisconsin governor the day before.
"Nobody called me or anything like that to ask me to step out of this race," he said. "So I want to be very clear that there was no establishment process."
He said he was leaving because Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez was the "best candidate," and he endorsed her.
A longtime Democrat operative now says it wasn't that simple. According to that insider, Crowley's endorsement came with a price tag. "The Crowley campaign made clear that David Crowley would not endorse Lieutenant Governor Rodriguez unless significant funds were promised," the operative said.
The number they landed on, according to the source, was $250,000, moved into Crowley's campaign account. The deal also included a paid position for his wife, Ericka. "It was clear that it would be a paid position," the source said. The talks reportedly went on for about a month before the deal was done.
Asked about it, a Crowley campaign spokesman said, "We have no idea what you are talking about." Rodriguez's office didn't respond.
If the deal happened, the person Crowley allegedly sold his endorsement to couldn't have paid it.
Nine days after Crowley quit, Rodriguez's campaign fell apart. Ads she'd scheduled never aired because the invoices hadn't been paid. Her finance reports had double-counted contributions and undercounted expenses. She'd been telling people she had about $200,000 in the bank. The real number was under $35,000, with more than $152,000 in bills still owed. She fired her campaign manager, Kara Spencer, and dropped out on July 17, citing issues that "would be an ongoing distraction."
Less than 24 hours later, Crowley was back in the race. This time, Gov. Tony Evers was behind him.
Ericka Crowley already has a job connected to her husband's government. She was hired while he was county executive, and she now runs the Milwaukee Rental Housing Resource Center at Community Advocates. She got that promotion shortly after her husband's administration sent federal rental assistance money to the agency.
Wisconsin Democrats have cleared a field like this before. In the 2022 Senate primary, Tom Nelson, Alex Lasry, and Sarah Godlewski all dropped out and endorsed Mandela Barnes in the span of four days. Seven months later, Evers appointed Godlewski secretary of state. This year she's running for lieutenant governor, and no other Democrat filed to run against her.
On August 11, Crowley beat progressive State Rep. Francesca Hong in the primary, even though polls had shown her leading. His margin was about 3,200 votes out of nearly 788,000, or less than half a percentage point. Hong conceded at about 2:30 in the morning, and that ended any chance of a recount.
The race was that close partly because of Milwaukee, the county Crowley runs.
On primary night, nine USB drives carrying Milwaukee's absentee ballot results were delivered to the county courthouse. Five of them didn't have any vote totals. They held audit logs instead. About 15,000 absentee ballots, more than half of the city's total, were missing from the count.
Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez blamed "human error." She said a worker hit the wrong button. Officials went back to the tabulators, downloaded the results again under police escort, and said they matched the printed tapes. Roughly an hour later, those votes went into the count.
Crowley won his home county, 43 percent to 41 percent.
"Wisconsin isn't for sale," said conservative commentator Steve Cortes after the allegations surfaced.
No investigator has looked into the alleged deal. Crowley faces Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany on November 3. Polls show Crowley about three points ahead and under 50 percent.
