U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden tours Gilbertson's Dairy in Dunn County. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

In the race for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, both Republican incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden and his Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke pulled up to campaign events last week in pickup trucks as they’ve each sought to claim status as true “political outsiders” who can bring a different perspective to Washington D.C. 

Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL, had never held an elected office before he ran for the seat and lost in 2020 to former Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, who had held the position for 26 years. After Kind retired in 2022, Van Orden ran again and won, defeatingstate Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska). Running for re-election for the first time, Van Orden tells voters he’s focused on making policies “where the rubber meets the road.” 

Cooke, a nonprofit leader, business owner and waitress, points to her upbringing on an Eau Claire County dairy farm and has criticized both parties, depicting herself as a moderate in the purple district — which has been won twice by former President Donald Trump.

Both candidates say they represent the working class voters of western Wisconsin’s Driftless Region. Each has  accused the other of being a political insider. 

Van Orden and Republicans have highlighted Cooke’s previous work as a Democratic political fundraiser while Cooke, at an event last week, said that since being elected, Van Orden has “gone Washington.” 

Since Van Orden won in 2022, Wisconsin Democrats have been haunted by the national party’s abandonment of Pfaff’s campaign. Late in the cycle, the national party and its allied groups pulled spending in the district and moved it elsewhere. Van Orden won the race by 3.8 percentage points. 

This year, the outside money has continued to flow towards Cooke’s campaign. House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ largest outside funder of  congressional campaigns, has more than $4 million in advertising reserved in the district while both candidates have individually raised more than $4 million, keeping Cooke’s campaign closer to her opponent’s in available cash than Pfaff had two years ago. 

William Garcia, chair of the 3rd District and La Crosse County Democratic Parties says that national Democrats “learned their lesson” after Pfaff’s loss. 

“Look what you did, you took money out of the 3rd and gave it to places that lost by more,” Garcia said, describing conversations he had with national Democrats after 2022. 

Garcia says with Cooke on the ticket and the renewed national support, he’s confident in Cooke’s ability to return the seat to Democrats. 

“We’re doing great,” he says. “Rebecca Cooke is good at connecting with people, talking with the press and engaging in the issues. We’re going to keep moving that needle.” 

But with just a few weeks left in the campaign, election forecasters believe that needle still points toward Van Orden. Public polling on the race has been limited, but most have shown Van Orden with a lead. Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, designates the district as leaning Republican. 

Throughout the campaign, Democrats have criticized Van Orden for contributing to Congress’ inability to pass an updated farm bill. Since taking office, Van Orden has celebrated his appointment to the House agriculture committee, but despite a farm bill passing out of the committee with his vote, it has not passed the full House. 

The 3rd District is home to much of the state’s cranberry industry and a large number of dairy farms. The area, like other parts of Wisconsin and around the country, has seen a growth in the number of large factory farms. But factory farms haven’t become as dominant as in eastern Wisconsin, with some small and mid-size farms holding on. 

“For this congressional district it’s the biggest disappointment,” Garcia says. “He made a big deal of being on the agriculture committee but one of the great failures of this Congress is the inability to pass a farm bill.” 

Van Orden blames the Democratic controlled Senate for the impasse, saying the House is waiting on them to introduce their version of the bill. 

Last Thursday, Van Orden and a small group of supporters toured the 550-cow Gilbertson’s Dairy Farm in Dunn County as he received the endorsement of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.

At the event, Van Orden said “I’m not gambling with your farm,” when discussing the importance of getting a farm bill passed. He talked about making sure the policies set at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are kept up to date with modern farming practices. 

“Government has to operate at the speed of farming,” he said. “Farming should not be beholden to government policies that are decades behind.”

Throughout the race, he’s discussed goals to reduce government regulations on farms and let farmers do their work. 

“We have to understand that farmers are shepherds of the land, they’re the greatest conservationists around,” he said. “Because if you destroy the land, you can’t farm and you’re out of business. So what I want to do is make sure that USDA is keeping up with what farmers need. We absolutely want to maintain this beautiful land, but when you have onerous amounts of regulations, the farmers can’t afford to farm anymore, which means we can’t afford to feed everyone. So the federal government needs to get out of the way of their private businesses, including the agricultural industry, and let them do their job.” 

At an event nearly 100 miles south in La Crosse, Cooke — speaking to a small group of supporters — mocked property Van Orden owns as a “hobby farm” and later told reporters that the version of the farm bill he voted for in committee “doesn’t support small and mid-sized farmers.” 

During the campaign, Van Orden has focused heavily on immigration policy, complaining about unauthorized crossings of migrants at the country’s southern border and highlighting crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in the district. Democratic voters at the Cooke event worried about the effect that Republican immigration proposals, saying Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants could devastate a number of local industries, including agriculture. 

On the road between the two events, the city of Arcadia is home to Ashley Furniture, the largest furniture manufacturer in the world, which is heavily dependent on Hispanic immigrant workers. More than 63% of the city’s population is Hispanic, according to census data, and 44% of the community speaks Spanish. In western Wisconsin, an estimated 70% of the workforce on local dairy farms is made up of immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America.

At her La Crosse event, Cooke appeared at the local Korean War Memorial where she received the endorsement of National Security Leaders of America, a group of retired members of the military and former staff at the Departments of Defense, State and Veterans Affairs. 

After losing his first campaign to Kind in 2020, Van Orden attended the rally in Washington D.C. that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The veterans’ group highlighted Jan. 6 saying Van Orden’s presence near the Capitol that day should disqualify him from office. Cooke said she was “humbled” by the endorsement, which also gave her campaign an avenue to contrast Van Orden’s military record without criticizing his service. 

“[Van Orden] has done an incredible amount since launching his first campaign for this seat,” she said. “Unfortunately, none of it has been to benefit his constituents and our community. It has been in service of his own ego and his own political advancement.” 

Pfaff’s campaign in 2022 focused heavily on attacking Van Orden for perceived  character flaws. In addition to his  attendance at the Trump rally on Jan. 6, Pfaff pointed to an incident in which Van Orden tried to bring a loaded gun onto an airplane and a time he yelled at a teenage library employee in Prairie du Chien over a LGBTQ book display for Pride month. After he was elected, Van Orden made headlines for yelling at teenage Senate pages for taking pictures in the Capitol rotunda.

While Cooke mentioned some of those outbursts, she kept the focus on policy. 

“We have so much to do here in this district when it comes to service,” she said. “Our communities still need access to better health care, health care that they can afford, and so many of our families really are struggling to make ends meet. Whether that’s filling up at the gas tank or getting to the grocery store and being able to pay for their rent all in the same month, and to have a little bit of money left over.”

“We also know that we deserve leaders that build up our democracy,” she continued. “As these folks mentioned, I’m running against someone who is an election denier. He participated in the Stop the Steal rally. He is shaking the very pillars of our democracy.” 

But Van Orden, asked about his attendance at the Trump rally on Jan. 6, said he condemned the attack on the Capitol and criticized a reporter for asking about it, saying, “next time do your homework before you ask me that question.” 

Despite all the negative headlines that have surrounded Van Orden before and since he took office, he summarized the choice in his re-election race as a simple calculation: Are voters better off now than when President Joe Biden won office four years ago? Although Republicans have held a majority in the House since 2022.  

“Are you better off now than you were three and a half years ago or four years ago? The answer is no,” he said. “We’re closer to World War III than we have been in my lifetime because of weak strategic leadership by the Biden administration. So everybody just ask yourself, are you better off now than you were four years ago? And if they’re honest, they’re going to say no. That means you need a change in leadership.”

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