U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders rallied voters in Eau Claire on Sunday for Democrat Rebecca Cooke, stumping inside a packed ballroom as she tries again to unseat Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in one of the most closely watched House races in the country. The event drew supporters to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus, where Sanders made his pitch for Cooke's third run at the western Wisconsin seat.
Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, spoke inside the W.R. Davies Student Center's Ojibwe Room, where the rally was scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., according to WEAU. The crowd filled the room, and according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Cooke is running in a rematch against Van Orden, the incumbent who has held the seat since 2023.
This is Cooke's third campaign for the seat, and the district itself stretches across much of western Wisconsin, covering La Crosse, Eau Claire, Stevens Point and Platteville, per the same account. The paper describes the contest as one of the nation's key battlegrounds, one that could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives.
A Rematch With a Razor-Thin History
Van Orden is now seeking a third term in Congress, and the 2026 contest marks his second head-to-head matchup with Cooke. Accounts of just how close that 2024 race was differ: the Journal Sentinel reported Cooke lost by about 11,000 votes, while Wisconsin Public Radio put the margin at less than three percentage points, with Cooke taking 48.6 percent of the vote to Van Orden's 51.3 percent.
The Cook Political Report notes that Van Orden won that 2024 reelection by three points even as Donald Trump carried the district by seven points, a gap that has kept national handicappers watching the seat closely. The outlet also lists the race as having moved from Lean Republican to Toss Up this cycle.
Big Names and Bigger Money Flowing In
Sanders is far from the first national figure to parachute into the district this year. House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned with Van Orden earlier this month, while President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited in June and Vice President JD Vance stopped by in February, according to the Journal Sentinel.
Wisconsin Public Radio reports that Cooke's earlier campaign total was $8.6 million and that she was ahead by just over $1 million in the latest filings.
Cooke's Pitch on Affordability
On the campaign trail, Cooke has leaned heavily on cost-of-living themes. She has proposed a federal moratorium on building data centers, arguing it would ease utility costs for residents in her district, according to Heartland Signal. Her broader affordability agenda also includes a $15-per-hour federal minimum wage, a ban on price gouging and caps on prescription drug prices, the outlet reports.
Wisconsin Public Radio describes the 3rd District as one of only a handful of seats nationally considered a true toss-up, underscoring why Democrats view it as central to their push to retake the House majority. That framing has turned a single western Wisconsin district into a proxy battle for control of Congress, with both parties pouring in money, surrogates and attention ahead of Election Day.
