Rebecca Cooke has run for Congress three times on the same story. She is a waitress. She grew up on a dairy farm outside Eau Claire. She is one of us.
Her own resume says otherwise. Cooke, the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, has spent much of her adult life raising money for Democrats and getting paid by the people who fund them. She lost the 2022 Democratic primary for this seat and was defeated by Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, 51.3% to 48.6%, in 2024. Now she wants a rematch, and she is counting on voters not reading the fine print.
A Paid Operative in a Waitress Apron
Since late 2012, Cooke worked as a finance director for Democratic House campaigns in Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, and California. In 2015, she registered her own political firm, Cooke Strategy LLC. Federal records indicate that she and her firm took in more than $190,000 from political committees between 2015 and 2021.
Governor Tony Evers appointed her to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation board. Her 2022 federal disclosure lists her as a “Steering Committee Member, Opportunity Wisconsin.” Opportunity Wisconsin operates as a trade name for the Washington-based North Fund, a dark money group that has run seven-figure ad campaigns opposing Wisconsin Republicans, including Van Orden.
The paychecks kept coming. Cooke’s latest disclosure shows she earned more than $90,000 from January 2025 through July 14, 2026, from waiting tables, rental property income, and political fellowships. The median household income in her district is approximately $73,000. Third Way, a Washington-based think tank, paid her $30,000 for a project focused on working-class voters. The Pipeline Fund, which recruits progressive candidates, confirmed her contract work in 2025. George Soros’ Open Society network contributed $1 million to Third Way’s research arm in 2023 and 2024, and $1.4 million to the Pipeline Fund in 2024.
Primary voters never saw any of it. Cooke requested a 90-day extension in April, which moved her disclosure deadline to August 13, two days after the August 11 primary.
Her defense was that she is just getting by. “I’m one of the thousands of people in this district who can’t afford health insurance,” the Journal Sentinel reported. That is a hard sell at $90,000. It is harder when her own campaign, which has raised $12.7 million compared to Van Orden’s $9.1 million, reported staff salaries but no health insurance for employees in its July FEC filing. She wants Washington to cover everyone. Her campaign does not cover its own staff.
Cooke has stated that her campaign is funded by grassroots contributions. When asked about connections to Soros, she responded, “Zero.” Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros, and his wife Jennifer have contributed $20,600 to her campaign since 2024.
After Van Orden posted AI-generated videos about her, Cooke responded with a cease-and-desist letter through Elias Law Group, a firm founded by Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic election attorney.
Bernie in August, “Moderate” in September
Cooke beat Emily Berge in the primary by running left. Her closing primary message leaned on Bernie Sanders’ endorsement. By September, her general election advertisement was titled “Moderate.”
She likes to say she is “somewhere in the middle.” At a La Crosse County Democrats meeting, when asked whom she would support for mayor of New York City, she replied, “Mamdani,” receiving applause. Zohran Mamdani is the socialist who ran on city-owned grocery stores, free public transportation, and a rent freeze.
When Vice President Kamala Harris visited Wisconsin, Cooke stated, “I don’t need anyone to come and campaign with me in my district.” Days later, she announced a rally with Bernie Sanders for the final week. She does not need Harris. She needs Bernie.
On policing, she was clear when she thought only activists were listening. On a December 2023 Zoom call for Citizen Action of Wisconsin, she said she favored putting money into “root causes” rather than “brute police enforcing.” At a Vernon County Democrats event, asked how to “reimagine policing,” she called for more “officers and social workers that will come to help de-escalate situations, versus using force first.” Once the video surfaced, she suddenly wanted to “fully fund our police departments.”
On guns, she backed red flag laws at a July candidate forum, then promised nobody is coming for your guns. Red flag laws are how the government takes them.
National Democrats know exactly who she is. The DCCC put her on its Red to Blue list months before the primary. Her primary opponent, Emily Berge, stated, “We have people in D.C. picking who they want to represent western and central Wisconsin.”
ICE, Eau Claire and the Left’s Talking Points
In a September 2025 video, Cooke said the way the Trump administration has used ICE was “disgusting and wrong.” In January, she wrote that “ICE needs to vacate Minnesota and leave our neighbors alone.” In March, when asked by a reporter whether she supports deporting illegal immigrants who rape and murder Americans. She put her head down and walked away.
This spring she proudly touted an endorsement from AFSCME. That union published a toolkit showing businesses how to get around restrictions on commercial driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and sued the Trump administration over proof-of-status rules. Wisconsin families share the road with those 80,000-pound trucks.
In 2020, Cooke used her Eau Claire store’s Instagram to lament living in her “predominantly white hometown” and to address “the quiet racism that has infiltrated” it. “Use your white privilege to be an ally,” she told customers. That is what she thinks of the people she now wants to represent.
The Company She Keeps
Cooke worked as a paid fundraiser for Kirk Bangstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing. FEC records show his 2016 campaign paid her and her firm approximately $12,300. In April, following the attempt on President Trump’s life at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Bangstad posted, “Well, we almost got #freebeerday.” Cooke’s campaign said nothing. Van Orden called them both “unfit for office.”
California Rep. Eric Swalwell endorsed her. When sexual assault allegations against him surfaced in April, allegations he denies, she quietly pulled his name off her website before saying a word. Only later did she say she would give his $5,000 to charity.
She wants a moratorium on data centers and stated she will not be “beholden” to large technology companies. Third Way, where she was a fellow, described a moratorium as “misguided.” She also served on the board of the Wisconsin Technology Council, which lobbied for a pro-data center bill in 2025.
And she will not debate. Van Orden says he has accepted four debate invitations and Cooke declined all four. When La Crosse Chamber talks fell apart, she claimed Van Orden backed out. His campaign released the recording of the call. On it, a Cooke staffer says, “We are not continuing with these negotiations.”
Van Orden Has Delivered
Van Orden served in the Navy from 1988 to 2014 and retired as a Navy SEAL Senior Chief after five combat deployments. In Congress, President Trump signed his VA Home Loan Program Reform Act into law. It gives veterans who fall behind on their mortgages a second chance to keep their homes. Nearly 70,000 veteran homeowners were more than 90 days late when it passed.
He voted for the Working Families Tax Cut, which stopped about a $1,500 tax hike on the average household. “I supported the Working Families Tax Cuts, which put more money back in the pockets of working families, seniors and small businesses,” he says.
He is fighting the 765-kV transmission line that would cut through Driftless farmland. “They feel like they are being pushed around by your company. This is something I will not stand for,” he wrote to the developer. His data center plan says communities get the final say, farmland stays farmland and data centers pay for the power they need so families are not stuck with the bill. In June, he stood with President Trump at a farm roundtable in Chippewa Falls, pushing to get the farm bill done.
Van Orden has a record. Cooke has a resume and a progressive streak she is trying to hide. On Tuesday, November 3, western Wisconsin should send Derrick Van Orden back to Congress.
