Democrats improved against Van Orden in ’24, have better chance in ’26, experts say

Democrats and Republicans raised a record amount — more than $12 million — in trying to win the 3rd Congressional District in western Wisconsin this year. The result moved the needle to the left, but not enough for a victory.

Rookie GOP Congressman Derrick Van Orden won by about 2.8 percentage points this year, or about 11,000 votes, in defeating Democrat Rebecca Cooke. That’s nearly a point less than in 2022,  when he won by about 3.7 points in the swing district.

Defending the seat in 2026 may be a steeper task for him though, experts say, as Donald Trump will not be on the ballot, and the party out of power usually does well in midterm elections.

“Trump’s coattails may have made the difference” in 2024, Joe Heim, a political science professor emeritus at UW-La Crosse, wrote in an email.

“If Cooke runs in 2026, and it is more of a Democratic year, she would again be a formidable opponent,” he continued. “Van Orden has to avoid more gaffes and mistakes as an incumbent.”

Ed Miller, a political science professor emeritus at UW-Stevens Point agreed that Trump’s coattails may have boosted Van Orden across the finish line this year.

“Without these, he could lose in two years if the Democrats have a strong candidate for governor,” he wrote in an email.

But Miller disagreed on the strength of Cooke, saying she was not a great candidate who had “weak ads on television.”

Cooke did show strength in fundraising, as she was competitive in that area with the incumbent, who usually has the advantage there. She reported raising more than $5.3 million through mid-October in the final campaign finance reporting period before the election. Van Orden reported raising more than $6.6 million in the same time frame. Millions more were spent by outside groups independent of the candidates’ campaigns.

All that cash buys loads of political advertising on TV, the radio and in mailboxes across the district, which stretches along most of western Wisconsin and into the center of the state.

“With Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Steven Point in the district, I think it is possible to defeat Van Orden in a future election,” Miller said of the left-leaning cities.

Van Orden ran one unsuccessful campaign in 2020 against the last Democrat to hold the 3rd Congressional District, Ron Kind, before winning in 2022 after Kind retired.

Could Cooke follow the same playbook?

Her campaign did not answer an email asking if she had any plans to run for the seat in 2026, but an automated email response said this:

“While the results on election night were obviously not what we hoped, we are proud of the movement that we built, and there will be more to come.”

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.