Mitchell Berman and Rebecca Cooke, the two Democrats running to unseat incumbent Republican Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden in two of the most closely watched congressional races in the country, outraised their opponents in the most recent filing period. 

Both Democrats also received more individual and small dollar donations than Steil and Van Orden, who are more reliant on wealthy donors and the aid of GOP-aligned PACs. The latest campaign finance reports show that all four candidates will be funded enough for the final push to Election Day in both hotly contested races. 

In the 1st Congressional District, Berman is running closer than expected to Steil. He narrowly outraised Steil between July 23 and Sept. 30. 

Still, Steil spent four times as much money during the period and retains a massive cash-on-hand advantage.

Berman raised $897,321, with almost all of that coming from individual donations. He spent $710,725 during the reporting period and finished September with $338,069 in the bank. In the middle of the reporting period, Berman was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of target races — bringing national infrastructure and support to the campaign. 

Steil raised $783,582 during the period, including $215,637 from individuals, $268,500 from PACs and other committees, and $204,908 in transfers. He spent more than $2.9 million and had $4.2 million in the bank at the end of September. 

Steil’s fundraising has recently drawn scrutiny, with the Milwaukee Courier reporting on donations he’s received from industry groups shortly before taking votes related to their business interests. 

“Southeast Wisconsin is tired of politicians like Bryan Steil who get rich in office while working families pay more for everything,” Berman said in a statement about the finance reports. “Steil stood with Trump on tariffs, health care cuts, and a war that’s driving up prices, while handing billions in tax breaks to data center developers and his billionaire donors who are funding his campaign. No amount of dark money can cover up that record. I’m proud to have a campaign powered by the people of Southeast Wisconsin – not a dime of corporate PAC money – and in Congress, they’re the only ones I’ll answer to.”

In the 3rd Congressional District, Cooke has long been outraising Van Orden, but after a closer than expected Democratic primary election, her cash-on-hand advantage was depleted. For the cycle, she’s raised $12 million compared to Van Orden’s $9.3 million — a feat for a candidate who doesn’t have the fundraising advantage of incumbency. 

During the most recent reporting period, Cooke more than doubled Van Orden’s fundraising, bringing in $3.4 million, with $883,128 of that money coming from donations of less than $200. She spent about $4.3 million and ended September with $901,408 in the bank. 

Van Orden raised $1.2 million during the period, with $312,312 coming from donations of less than $200. He spent $3.8 million during the period and finished September with $2.1 million in cash and reported debts of $271,170.

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, the Republican incumbent running for reelection in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, one of the most hotly contested House races in the country, has decided his best chance is to dance with the one who brought him — President Donald Trump. 

“Derrick, this guy he fights like hell. He’s in a little bit of a community that tends to be on slightly, a little bit more than we wanted, left, but he loves them all, and he’s very popular, and he’s going to win by a lot,” Trump said of Van Orden at a June rally in Chippewa Falls. “You’re doing well. I understand you’re really doing well. So, thank you and he’s a real fighter … we’ve been friends right from the beginning.” 

Trump’s approval ratings have hit all-time lows in Wisconsin recently, a potential problem for Van Orden, whose seat is one of the Democratic Party’s top targets for flipping this year. The two-term Republican is running for the second time against Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who two years ago lost to Van Orden by only 2.7 points, in a district where Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris by 7.4 points. 

Between the two campaigns and outside groups, the increasingly heated race is nearing $30 million in spending on mostly negative ads. Van Orden’s ads have alliteratively accused Cooke of being “corrupt” and “communist” while calling her authenticity into question — largely over charges that she’s highlighted her work as a waitress while downplaying her previous work for Democratic political campaigns and interest groups. 

“I think the campaign has gotten intensely negative, with authenticity being a core theme,” Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said. “I’m seeing authenticity come up on both sides, where Congressman Van Orden and his allies are going after the persona or biography of Rebecca Cooke, particularly her waitressing, has become kind of a flashpoint in this campaign. And for Congressman Van Orden, Democrats are going after him as kind of saying that he’s part of the problem in Washington, and that’s a tried and true strategy for unseating an incumbent, to portray them as part of the problem.”

Congress, Chergosky continued, “has rock bottom approval ratings as an institution, so incumbents are often targeted due to their membership in an unpopular institution. Chergosky expects the attack ads will blanket the airwaves up to Election Day, he said. “I think that this is going to continue to be a very negative campaign.” 

Across the country, a number of vulnerable Republicans have sought to find areas to distance themselves from an unpopular president. Even in Wisconsin, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — despite a voting record that has been in near perfect lockstep with the Trump administration — has tried to put some breathing room between himself and Trump. 

But Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL, has gone the other way, continuing to vocally support the Trump administration, the war in Iran, Trump’s tariffs, his steering of the economy and the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. 

In September, Van Orden was the only member of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation to speak at Trump’s midterm convention in Texas. 

Throughout the year, the 3rd CD has hosted a parade of high-profile administration officials and top-ranking Republicans. 

Van Orden has appeared in his western Wisconsin district with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and House Speaker Mike Johnson. 

“We are defending, right now, the foundational truths, and I’ve got to have warriors in the room to do it,” Johnson said at a rally in Sparta earlier this month. “There is no stronger warrior than Derrick Van Orden.” 

In recent weeks, Van Orden has made online posts suggesting he would volunteer to join the firing squad in the planned execution of Nidal Hasan, the man convicted of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, accusing Cooke of supporting the “chemical and physical castration of children and men in woman’s locker rooms” and alleging that she wants to bring “Somali fraud” to Wisconsin. 

He’s also posted a number of AI-generated videos of Cooke and other Democratic Party of Wisconsin officials, a tactic that drew a cease and desist letter from the Cooke campaign. Van Orden called the letter a “publicity stunt.” 

A spokesperson for Van Orden did not respond to a request for comment, but in an interview with Channel 3000, Van Orden strongly endorsed Trump’s ongoing war in Iran and argued that the high price of gas and diesel is not only because of the war causing shocks to global oil markets but also due to Democrats “chasing the green new scam” and U.S. oil companies “profiteering.” 

“Is this politically convenient right now? Absolutely not,” Van Orden said in the interview, in which he also referenced the “radical Muslim mullahs” who led the Iranian revolution in the 1970s. “Would it be much easier for Republicans to maintain the House and the Senate if we weren’t involved in this conflict in Iran? Yes. I would be a fool not to acknowledge that. But at some point, we have to deal with this issue that’s been going on for a half a century.”

Chergosky said that Van Orden “doubling down on Trumpism” might be a valid strategy in a district that’s voted for Trump three times. 

The problem, he said, is that those Trump voters haven’t always been reliable when Trump isn’t on the ballot. 

“I think Republicans in this district are making a play to turn out the pro-Trump base, and it’s a base that has delivered for Trump three times, but with any midterm election, we’re going to see a significant drop-off in voter turnout,” Chergosky said. “So a lot of times these midterms come down to the question of, among the voters who voted in the presidential election, which of them stay home this time around? In other words, who drops out of the electorate compared to the presidential election? And so I think the concern for Republicans is that a lot of these pro-Trump, low-propensity voters are going to drop out of the electorate, and I can see them trying to avoid that certainly through Congressman Van Orden’s strategy.” 

But the 3rd CD is also a district that for decades was represented by Ron Kind, a moderate Democrat. Van Orden, with his divisive and confrontational style, has been elected twice deploying a different approach to politics; still, joining forces with some of the most controversial members of Trump’s cabinet could alienate voters. 

At an agricultural roundtable hosted by the Cooke campaign last week, voters complained about the anti-vaccine “conspiracy theories” espoused by figures such as Kennedy resulting in measles outbreaks in the area. At a town hall hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union in Gays Mills, attendees lamented the treatment of immigrant workers at the district’s farms and manufacturing plants. 

“Derrick Van Orden has not delivered a successful farm bill out of this Congress,” Cooke said last week. “I don’t think that he’s really done very much at all to support our family farms or people in agriculture across this district.”

In the Channel 3000 interview, Van Orden made the case that he’s been a serious legislator, listing the three committees he sits on.

While in Congress, he voted in favor of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut billions from federal healthcare programs and has hurt the bottom line of rural hospitals in the 3rd CD. After voting for the law, Van Orden has touted his work to provide millions of dollars to rural hospitals in Wisconsin. But that funding provides only $200 million after the OBBBA cut $7 billion in federal healthcare funds meant for the state, an analysis by KFF found last year

From his position on the House Agriculture committee, Van Orden has suggested expanding the H2-A visa program to help the district’s dairy farms get more immigrant labor. But the H2-A program only applies to seasonal farm workers, not the year round workers needed on a dairy farm. Van Orden has also proposed the creation of a new system in which currently undocumented workers return to their home country and pay $2,500 to get in line and wait to be approved for a new visa. 

“They should expect me to work doggedly, like I have been doing. I’ve been an incredibly effective legislator,” he said.

At a roundtable on her family’s Eau Claire area farm last week with former Montana Sen. Jon Tester, Democrat Rebecca Cooke argued that if she’s elected to represent Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, she’ll take on the issues that have been plaguing rural America for decades and work to undo the Trump administration policies that are making those problems worse. 

But Democrats all over the country, including in Wisconsin and the 3rd CD have had trouble winning rural support in the past. 

“We need people who are willing to stand up and speak. I come from an area that in the 1960s was solid blue, and now it’s solid red,” Tester said at the roundtable. That political shift happened, he said, “because Democrats don’t show up.” Nowadays, he added, “Republicans take it for granted” that rural areas are mainly red.  “So the opportunity here to help flip this situation around,” Tester said, “so we’ve got people in Washington D.C. that are working for us, everybody — not just rural America, but everybody — but making sure that rural America is at the table is really, really important.” 

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind represented Wisconsin’s 3rd CD for decades. After his retirement, state Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), the former state agriculture secretary, ran and lost to Derrick Van Orden in 2022. Cooke subsequently lost narrowly when she challenged Van Orden in 2024. 

“Derrick Van Orden has put rural America squarely last,” Cooke said after the event on her family’s farm. “He’s voted time and again for the war in Iran six times that has increased diesel prices, increased fertilizer prices … Farmers here in the 3rd Congressional District are reeling from the impact of reciprocal tariffs on our soybeans and our cranberries, are struggling because of the increased input costs from diesel and fertilizer prices with this war in Iran. And Congress’s failure to expand the ACA tax credit premium for three more years has really hurt a lot of farmers, too. They have seen their premiums go up from $400 to $1,800 a month. Derrick Van Orden has not delivered a successful farm bill out of this Congress. I don’t think that he’s really done very much at all to support our family farms or people in agriculture across this district.”

This year, with the national environment fueling Democratic hopes for victories up and down the ticket in states across the country as President Donald Trump’s approval ratings hit record lows, and diesel prices and tariffs on Canadian fertilizer hurt western Wisconsin farmers, Democrats are confident about their chances. The 3rd CD is at the top of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of 2026 targets. Both parties and a lineup of outside PACs have already spent nearly $30 million on the district with ads that have become increasingly negative. 

Van Orden, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, has often brought a combative personality, a penchant for social media trolling and an eagerness to support Trump to his role. A member of the House agriculture committee, he’s touted his work on the farm bill and legislative efforts to change visa programs for immigrant dairy workers. A spokesperson for Van Orden did not respond to a request for comment. 

At the Oct. 9 roundtable and during a Wisconsin Farmers Union town hall in Gays Mills the same day, area farmers said Van Orden has done little to help them or mischaracterized their problems while supporting large factory farms over the smaller family operations that define western Wisconsin’s cultural identity even as they struggle to make ends meet. 

The group of farmers at the roundtable complained that it has gotten harder for them to get healthcare coverage and that the Trump administration’s cuts to food programs such as SNAP hurt farmers. They also said that Trump’s crackdown on immigration, which spilled over into western Wisconsin during Operation Metro Surge in the nearby Twin Cities, has hurt the labor they depend on. They also worried that a food system oriented toward giving the biggest players a leg up will hasten the destruction of  their way of life. 

“We can identify the problems, like we know what the issues are, right?” Cooke told the group. “And we need to have people that are solutions-oriented going into Congress. There is a lot of finger-pointing to be had because these are bad things that are happening, but we also need to think about how do we move forward.”

If elected, Cooke will be a first-year Democrat during a Republican presidency but she said she hopes to get assigned to the agriculture committee and that one of her first priorities would be establishing a “right to repair” — which would allow farmers to work on their own machinery rather than paying high prices for repairs at dealerships. She also said she wants to push for a farm bill that “caters to small, mid-size ag,” provide a pathway to citizenship for the district’s immigrant laborers, create a health insurance public option and to expand Medicare to cover vision and dental.

In the August primary election, Cooke defeated former Eau Claire City Council president Emily Berge by about 20 points in a contentious race that left some local party activists and voters embittered. Cooke has had to work to try to win those voters back. 

Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, told the Wisconsin Examiner that a contentious general election with reams of negative ads can often help a candidate bring their team back together after a bruising primary. 

“I think coming out of divisive primaries, parties often confront the challenge of uniting their supporters for the general election,” he said. “There are different ways to go about doing that, but one of the most tried and true methods is a negative campaign against the opposition, because that can really motivate a party’s supporters.” 

At the roundtable on her family farm, a roster of invited guests expressed enthusiastic support for Cooke.

“We can get this woman elected. That’s what we can do by getting one neighbor that never voted before, getting one neighbor who don’t think it’s worth it. It is,” Phil Swanhorst, chair of the Eau Claire County Democratic Party, said. “Each and every one of us can make a difference if we work a little bit harder to get her elected than we did two years ago. We got to get this type of woman in Congress to turn this shit around. We got to do it.”

When Van Orden was first elected in 2022, he beat Pfaff by 3.7 points — a result that many Democrats in the state blamed on the disappearance of national money and support in the final weeks of the race. Critics of the national Democratic party’s decision to pull out of the race pointed to the fact that  Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won the district in his reelection campaign that year. 

Two years ago, Cooke outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris in the district, losing by only 2.7 points compared to Harris’ 7.4 point loss to Trump. This year national Democrats believe that the time is right for Cooke to get the job done. 

Chergosky said that the Cooke campaign doesn’t need to win a landslide among rural voters. Instead, Cooke’s path could involve picking off just enough rural Wisconsinites who vote for her or don’t vote at all — in addition to turning out the Democratic voters in the district’s urban centers of Eau Claire and La Crosse. 

“If Cooke can move the rural margins back in her favor even a little bit, then that would go a long way towards helping her win the district,” Chergosky said. “I guess the good news is that it can’t really get any worse for [Democrats] in many rural communities. And so, if they can turn the tide even a little bit, it could go a long way towards helping them win this district, and others like it.”

At the Farmers Union event in Gays Mills, Cooke was joined on the dais by three Democrats running for legislative seats and Alexander Kent, an independent running for the 3rd CD. None of the Republicans running in the area showed up — a fact that Cooke was quick to note. 

During his four years in office, Van Orden has developed a local reputation for avoiding his constituents. His debate appearance with Cooke next week, on Oct. 20,  will be his first since his 2020 campaign against Kind. He has neglected to hold open town halls with constituents and residents of the district often complain of being blown off by their congressional representative. 

“These are frustrating times for our agricultural communities,” Cooke said. “I’m running against somebody and an administration that has done little to help farmers … I’m here today and showing up because, unlike someone that doesn’t show up, I believe it’s important to have these conversations in our community.”