A ‘referendum’ on Derrick Van Orden: House race highlights intense politics in Wisconsin

Control of the U.S. House of Representatives runs through a notoriously swingy region of western Wisconsin, where U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden faces a challenge from Rebecca Cooke.

Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District covers much of the Driftless Area in southwestern and western Wisconsin bordering Iowa and Minnesota. The district includes small towns and rural areas, as well as the cities of Eau Claire, La Crosse and Stevens Point, each with University of Wisconsin System campuses.

As both candidates trade attacks, they are vying for support from a block of moderates whose votes are tied less to political party and more to decency and character.

“They are able to have their minds changed on a partisan level,” said Republican Brian Westrate, a lifelong resident of the district and treasurer of the state Republican Party. “They are not committed to a party. They are voting, generally speaking, for a person.”

This district is being targeted nationally as one of Democrats’ top flip opportunities, and Cooke’s campaign has been added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's competitive “Red to Blue” program after the DCCC abandoned the district in 2022.

Democrats see Van Orden as a prime target. In the months since her campaign began, Cooke has laid into her opponent’s character. Van Orden is a close ally of former President Donald Trump, who endorsed the freshman congressman in May. Even before he took office, his time in the public spotlight has been tainted by a number of controversies.

Van Orden attended Trump’s Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, 2021, allegedly lost his temper over an LGBTQ+ book display in a Prairie du Chien library, drew criticism from his own party after cursing at a group of young Senate pages in the U.S. Capitol for taking photos, shouted “lies” over President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and got into an altercation with a protester at the RNC this year.

“Derrick Van Orden is known as this very polarizing figure,” UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky said in an interview with PBS.

Van Orden’s campaign did not return numerous messages seeking an interview for this story.

Van Orden refers to his opponent as “Rebecca Crook” online, accusing her of lying about being a political outsider. As originally reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Cooke previously worked as a finance director for four Democratic congressional races and has a Democratic political and fundraising consulting firm registered in her name.

Cooke’s campaign did not follow through with Wisconsin Watch’s numerous attempts to schedule an interview.

Where there’s an energized Democratic electorate for Vice President Kamala Harris, there’s a chance of lifting Democratic turnout and narrowing the margin by which down-ballot Democrats in Republican-leaning areas must outperform the top of the ticket, said Amy Walter, a political analyst and editor-in-chief of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

“In the 3rd District in particular, the hope is that Democrats are able to make this — much like a referendum on Trump — a referendum on the Republican incumbent Van Orden and the controversies surrounding him,” Walter said.

The district

This district has historically favored moderates like former Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, who held office for 26 years before retiring in 2022. That year, Van Orden beat Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff by four points. Before Kind, moderate Republican Steve Gunderson held the House seat for 16 years.

The district twice voted for former Democratic President Barack Obama, then voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 as rural areas have trended further right.

“It's hard for anyone to get too comfortable here because things can really change,” Chergosky said of the district in an interview with Wisconsin Watch.

Because of that, Harris, Tim Walz, Trump and JD Vance have all campaigned in the western Wisconsin district this year.

“Whoever wins western Wisconsin is going to win by less than three percentage points,” Westrate said.

He described district voters as practical, common-sense, down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth working folks and said that's exactly what they look for in their candidates, especially at the local level.

“I like folks who have a family, who have a mortgage, who have the things that define most of our lives,” Westrate told Wisconsin Watch. “We want to know that our candidates know what our life is like.”

In 2022, Van Orden and Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson won the district, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won it too.

“It shows you that candidates matter in this district,” Chergosky said.

Christian Phelps, a Democrat running for an Assembly seat in western Wisconsin’s 93rd District, said Democratic energy in the region is high, especially after Republican lawmakers and Evers agreed on new legislative maps in February, ending more than a decade of partisan gerrymandering in the state.

“No voter was more disenfranchised than the rural progressive, and there's a lot of progressive energy in rural Wisconsin,” Phelps told Wisconsin Watch.

Last year, the Cook Political Report moved Van Orden's congressional seat from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.”

Cooke’s success in the race will be closely tied to the turnout Harris gets in Wisconsin. The same can be said for Van Orden and the Trump ticket, Chergosky said. There appear to be far fewer ticket-splitting voters in the district who used to cast their ballot for a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic representative like Kind, he said.

Pfaff beat Cooke by 8 points in the district’s Democratic primary in 2022, but he ultimately lost to Van Orden. Wisconsin Democrats pointed fingers at the national party, blaming the DCCC for not investing in Pfaff’s race or putting the campaign on the committee's "Red to Blue" priority list. The Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC also cut its ad reservations for Pfaff after losing confidence in the race.

“This time, you can already see the investments from the DCCC, so western Wisconsin is not being overlooked like it was in 2022,” state Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler told Wisconsin Watch, calling Van Orden a “weak link.”

The DCCC recognizes its mistake and is much more involved this cycle, said William Garcia, Democratic chair of the 3rd Congressional District.

“They are here in a way that they were not years ago. I think it’s because they saw two years ago that they had a winnable seat and didn't help,” Garcia told Wisconsin Watch. “Also, they see that Derrick Van Orden is in an exceptionally vulnerable position.”

The candidates

Van Orden is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who first ran in the district against Kind in 2020, when he lost by less than 3 points. Before running for office, he appeared in the 2012 film “Act of Valor,” authored a book and consulted with Fortune 500 companies.

Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (Provided photo)

“Here in southwestern Wisconsin, honestly, we want to talk about policy,” Van Orden told a PBS Wisconsin reporter at a Trump rally in La Crosse in August. “We want to talk about issues. We really don’t want to talk about personality.”

But the policy issues on his campaign website haven’t been updated since 2021. The page still mentions “getting our children back to school” after “the last year of imposed (COVID-19) restrictions.”

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney — who endorsed Harris in Wisconsin this month — told a reporter she would not vote for Van Orden if she were a Wisconsin resident. Cheney has widely criticized Trump and other members of her party for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“It makes sense that someone who is new to office, their first attempt at reelection is a referendum on their behavior in office, and Van Orden’s behavior has been abysmal,” Garcia said.

Much like Cooke, Van Orden brands himself as a political outsider. But the status may not hold up this election cycle given he is now a member of Congress.

“Clearly both Cooke and Van Orden have the view that the political outsider brand will resonate with voters, and there's certainly a logic to that,” Chergosky said. “Congress is not popular. The political outsider brand is a way for someone to distance themselves from the mess in D.C.”

This has been a historically unproductive two years for the House, Chergosky said, having passed a much fewer number of substantive bills than previous sessions.

“That means that any House incumbent is going to have a complicated task in front of them,” Chergosky said. “Standard playbook for a House incumbent is to tout their policymaking achievements, but what happens if there aren't really any policymaking achievements?”

The House passed four bills Van Orden sponsored, mostly relating to the armed services. Van Orden so far has the most moderate voting record of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, according to Voteview.

Hannah Testin, vice chair of the 3rd Congressional District GOP, said Van Orden “is somebody that voters in the 3rd District can really relate to.”

“In this era, voters seem to be wanting change in Washington,” Testin told Wisconsin Watch. “I don't think you see that change in Washington by electing a political consultant.”

Rebecca Cooke (Courtesy of Rebecca Cooke)

Cooke, who came out on top of a three-way Democratic primary this year, is a small business owner and nonprofit director from Eau Claire. She grew up on a dairy farm and was appointed by Evers to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. She advertises herself as a working-class political newcomer, writing on social media, “I work as a waitress while running for Congress to make ends meet.”

“Like most folks in Wisconsin, I’m somewhere in the middle,” she said of her politics in a recent ad.

But she criticized the bipartisan record of her main Democratic primary opponent, state Rep. Katrina Shankland, D-Stevens Point.

After media outlets and opponents called out her background in political fundraising, Cooke’s campaign downplayed the role as one of her “interests” that “paid the bills,” adding that while she has worked in politics, she is not a career politician.

“I think that folks appreciate authenticity,” Westrate said. “Around here, they can handle a truth they don't like. What they don't want is to be lied to.”

During her first run in 2022, Cooke shared that she worked in politics in her early 20s.

Nevertheless, the criticism has delivered a blow to her political outsider status, especially given that she attacked Shankland for being a “career politician.” Shankland lost to Cooke by nearly 9 points after an unusually negative primary that prompted other Democrats like U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan to speak out in defense of Shankland.

After Shankland released an ad pointing to Cooke’s lack of experience in public office, Cooke put out a request for help from political action committees. Shankland later called Cooke out for accepting dark money from moderate Democratic PACs attacking her in the race after Cooke’s campaign accused Shankland of voting with Republican lawmakers to block Medicaid expansion, which was misleading.

Days after the primary, Cooke, Shankland and third Democratic primary candidate Eric Wilson “came together to showcase Democratic unity to defeat Derrick Van Orden.”

Garcia said Cooke excels at talking to voters in the district one-on-one and spends time at dairy breakfasts “milling around with people.”

“She is just incredible at this one-on-one politicking, and it's something that Derrick Van Orden is not good at,” Garcia said. “He is kind of afraid of the public. He doesn't like to mill around with people unless he knows they're all Republicans. He doesn't like to talk to the press unless he knows they are on his side, or at the very least, are very limited in the questions they can ask him.”

Testin mentioned some of Van Orden’s most recent campaign activities in the district, which were events hosted by local Republican parties, and said he recently knocked on doors with her husband, state Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point.

Chergosky said both candidates are strong fundraisers, but outside spending is going to significantly impact the race.

Van Orden has raised just over $6 million to Cooke’s $4.5 million, according to September campaign finance reports compiled by OpenSecrets. Cooke’s campaign pulled in more than $2.75 million in the third quarter alone.

A debate has not yet been scheduled and likely won’t be before Nov. 5. Cooke declined attempts to schedule a primary debate this summer, citing scheduling conflicts. Van Orden declined to debate Pfaff in 2022, accusing the media of being biased.

The Farm Bill

Van Orden and his supporters most often tout his appointment to the House Committee on Agriculture, becoming the first member of Wisconsin's delegation in almost a decade to be on the committee, and the first from the rural 3rd District to be on it since 2002.

“I think when you have somebody who fights tooth and nail to get on a very important committee to his district, that speaks well for the effort of the individual,” Westrate said.

“I don’t serve on the agriculture committee. I will actually rely on Derrick for a lot of advice on some of these more detailed and complex issues in terms of agriculture,” Sen. Johnson told Wisconsin Watch. “That’s a real credit to him.”

The committee’s main piece of legislation is the bipartisan 2024 Farm Bill, which Van Orden said he and other lawmakers have spent “hundreds if not thousands of hours” working on. He added that it is “a remarkable piece of legislation that’s going to help everybody, from our smallest farmers all the way to the larger farms.”

But the bill that will establish food and farm policy for the next five years still hasn’t been signed into law and is more than a year behind schedule as lawmakers wrestle over how to pay for it.

In May, Van Orden voted to advance the bill with billions in potential cuts to food assistance programs like SNAP, which assists over 700,000 Wisconsin residents as of March 2024, including about 78,000 people in the 3rd District.

Still, Van Orden has touted provisions of the bill he says will help the 3rd District, including better compensating dairy farmers for their milk and providing whole milk products for children in school.

Cooke’s campaign site says she would restructure the Farm Bill to focus more on agriculture and the farming community “versus the bulky package it has become.”

Pharmaceutical, manufacturing and big agriculture interest groups spent over $400 million lobbying on the Farm Bill.

Cooke wrote on social media: “We need a Farm Bill that delivers for family farms in communities across Wisconsin, not one built around subsidizing agricultural conglomerates and prioritizing corporate profits.”

Last year, Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden criticized Van Orden for “choosing big corporations” over small dairy farms in the state.

“Despite raising these concerns with Van Orden’s office, he hasn’t included amendments to help small farms in the Farm Bill and hasn’t stood up to the big corporations who are using the current policies to put family farms out of business,” Von Ruden wrote in an op-ed.

Von Ruden told Wisconsin Watch he was happy to see that Van Orden got the position on the committee, but his “lack of agricultural knowledge” does nothing to help Wisconsin’s industry.

Abortion

Abortion is likely a top issue for voters in the district, according to Chergosky. While leaning Republican, the district still voted for Evers in 2022 after he ran a successful campaign against Republican Tim Michels focused largely on reproductive freedom. Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz also won the district in her successful 2022 campaign centered on state abortion rights.

“Reproductive rights is what is bringing people out and getting people motivated to knock on doors and volunteer and canvas,” Garcia said of voters in western Wisconsin.

Chergosky said it’s obvious Cooke sees opportunity on the issue of abortion in this race, calling Van Orden an extremist and highlighting concerns over a national abortion ban in campaign ads.

“I really have a very, very difficult time trying to justify abortion under any circumstance,” Van Orden said in a radio interview with WSAU Feedback in 2020, adding that seeking an abortion after instances of rape or incest is only “compounding the evil.”

But this year he wrote on social media: “I made my position crystal clear last April. This is a state issue. Period.”

Cooke supports codifying abortion rights into law. She says she will fight to keep western Wisconsin’s two Planned Parenthoods open and federally funded and advocate against the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding, including Medicare and Medicaid, from being used for abortions. Her site also says she will support federal programs that improve access to family planning services.

“I know Democrats want to turn this into a referendum on abortion, but what the Dobbs decision has done is turn that decision back over to the states,” Johnson said, referring to the court decision that overruled Roe vs. Wade. “An individual member of Congress' view on this is basically irrelevant to the debate.”

Immigration

Van Orden has consistently attacked Cooke on immigration, criticizing her for not speaking out about a case he has widely circulated, in which Prairie du Chien police reported that a man tied to a Venezuelan criminal organization sexually assaulted a woman and attacked her daughter in September.

But Van Orden has made false claims that police in Madison arrested the suspect “for a series of violent crimes” but released him because it is a “sanctuary city.” The city police department and Dane County Sheriff's Office confirmed he was never in their custody.

Cooke said in an ad that if elected, she will “stand up to Democrats to fight for a secure border,” but includes no specific policy priorities on her campaign site.

Van Orden, while a staunch opponent of southern border policy under President Joe Biden’s administration, also has not proposed or identified policy solutions.

More than 10,000 undocumented immigrant workers perform an estimated 70% of the labor on Wisconsin dairy farms, according to an April 2023 survey by the School for Workers at UW-Madison.

Rural health care

Access to rural health care is another important issue to the district as the region had two hospital and 19 clinic closures earlier this year, leaving thousands without local options for care.

Health care systems have pointed to low staffing, insufficient Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, higher health care costs and a declining number of patients on private health insurance.

Soon after the closures, Van Orden called for state and federal resources, introducing legislation to extend telehealth services in rural health clinics and other health centers. This year, he also helped secure $600,000 in federal funds for Gundersen Health System in La Crosse for emergency equipment to improve access to ambulance services in surrounding rural areas.

“Enforcing price transparency on hospitals and doctors offices will allow everyone, with or without insurance, to shop around and find services in their budget,” Van Orden wrote in a recent op-ed.

Cooke’s campaign site lists health care as her top priority and says she would take steps to expand Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing, annually lower the age that seniors can start receiving Medicare benefits, address antitrust issues in the health care system, provide more tax credits to lower premiums, and ensure affordable access to prescription drugs with prices negotiated through Medicare.