Bernie Sanders Will Campaign for Rebecca Cooke in Western Wisconsin
US Senator from Vermont to join Viroqua town hall in 3rd Congressional District.
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks to supporters Friday, April 12, 2019, at James Madison Park in Madison, Wis. It was Sanders’ first stop in Wisconsin during his 2020 presidential campaign. He won Wisconsin’s Democratic primary in 2016. Shawn Johnson/WPR
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont says Democrats have to shift their message to win back rural voters, and he’s arguing that congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke can do just that in southwest Wisconsin.
The former presidential candidate will join Cooke at a town hall Saturday in Viroqua, a left-leaning town with a population of just under 5,000 people.
Cooke is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Prairie du Chien in a 2026 race that could flip Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. The district in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area includes farming communities, as well as the cities of Eau Claire, La Crosse and Stevens Point.
Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge and former Eau Claire City Council member Laura Benjamin have also announced that they’ll be running for the seat in the district’s Democratic primary.
But, in an interview with WPR Wednesday, Sanders said he believes Cooke has what it takes to flip the district.
“Democrats have been losing ground, not only rural Wisconsin, but rural America, in fact, all over the country, and I think the Democrats have got to make a fundamental decision: Which side are they on?” Sanders said. “I think in Becca, you’re seeing a new breed of young Democrats who say, ‘You know what, I know what side I’m on. I come from the working class. I come from struggling families.’”
Cooke works on her family’s dairy farm and also waitresses part-time. She’s previously worked as a political fundraiser for Democratic candidates.
Cooke hasn’t held political office before, and Sanders said that may be a positive thing.
“She grew up in a family farm,” Sanders told WPR. “She knows what’s going on in her community, and that is what we need in Washington, people who know where they come from and are prepared to stand up and fight for their neighbors.”
In 2024, Cooke lost a race to unseat Van Orden by a margin of less than three percentage points. She also ran for the seat in 2022 but came up second in the Democratic primary against state Sen. Brad Pfaff.
Pfaff ultimately lost to Van Orden, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, in the general election.
Before Van Orden’s election, Ron Kind, a moderate Democrat, represented the 3rd District for nearly 30 years.
In her last campaign, Cooke said she would reflect the values of voters who are “in the middle.” Republicans, meanwhile, have painted her as a product of the far-left.
“Certified loser and Bernie-backed Democrat political operative Rebecca Cooke isn’t fooling anyone,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Zach Bannon said in a statement this week. “Wisconsin families deserve a representative who’ll stand up to the socialist fringe, not one who’s busy booking their next speaking slot.”
Officially an independent, Sanders has identified as a democratic socialist and often caucuses with Democrats.
Sanders’ visit to Wisconsin comes as he undertakes a multi-state tour campaigning on behalf of Democratic congressional candidates. It also comes as Republicans in Texas move to redraw their Congressional maps with the explicitly stated goal of gaining seats for the GOP. Those steps came at the behest of Trump, and it’s prompted Democrats in states like California to attempt to undertake their own partisan redistricting processes.
“That is just absolutely what Trumpism is about,” Sanders said. “It’s breaking the rules. It’s not playing the way you you know politics should be played, and so I think that Democrats around the country have got to respond.”
Sanders stopped short of saying, however, that Wisconsin should redraw its congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“If Trump began this effort, Democrats have got to fight back,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to give the Legislature in Wisconsin any advice. They don’t need it from me.”
Democrats have filed several legal challenges in Wisconsin in an attempt to get the Wisconsin Supreme Court to order the redrawing of electoral maps before the midterms.
Bernie Sanders will join Rebecca Cooke in pitch to rural voters of 3rd Congressional District was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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