Dem Abandons Moderate Lane To Campaign With Socialist In Trump District

Democratic congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke is tacking left in her third run for a battleground seat that President Donald Trump has won every time he’s been on the ballot.

Cooke, a twice-failed candidate running to unseat Republican Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden in a rematch contest, will participate in an “intimate” town hall event with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as part of his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour on Aug. 23. Cooke’s decision to embrace the 83 year-old democratic socialist comes after she previously cast herself as a moderate during previous runs for the seat.

Cooke, a former Democratic political strategist, is seeking the Democratic nomination in a purple district that President Donald Trump has carried during three consecutive presidential elections. Van Orden narrowly defeated Cooke by roughly three percentage points last November though the Democrat managed to outperform former Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly 10,000 votes.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the contest as one of eight GOP-held seats that are “toss-ups” heading into the midterms. Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, which Van Orden has represented since 2023, boasts a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+3 — meaning it voted an average of three points more Republican than the national average over the last two presidential elections.

Trump carried the district by over seven percentage points in 2024.

Despite the moderate leanings of the Trump-won seat she is running in, the former Democratic campaign staffer has embraced Sanders’ and his socialist platform during her third run for the seat.