Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District 2026 Race Guide: Rebecca Cooke vs. Derrick Van Orden and the Rematch That Could Decide the House
Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District 2026 race guide: Cooke vs. Van Orden, polling, fundraising, market odds, and House control stakes.
The margin was 11,000 votes. In a district that stretches from the Mississippi River bluffs of La Crosse to the farm country around Stevens Point, Derrick Van Orden held off Rebecca Cooke in 2024 by 51.3% to 48.6%—roughly the same math he used to win in 2022, and the same math both sides are now furiously working to shift in 2026.
With the Democratic primary settled on August 11—Cooke won with 57% of the vote over Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge—the general election in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District is officially set. Van Orden ran unopposed on the Republican side. November 3 will deliver the rematch both campaigns spent two years preparing for.
The Race in One Number
Prediction markets tracking Wisconsin's 3rd are pricing Cooke at 70 cents—a 70% implied probability—against Van Orden's 30 cents. That gap between market pricing and the structural forecasters who call this a straight toss-up is where the most interesting analytical debate lives.
Cook Political Report rates WI-03 as a Toss-Up, a shift it made in April 2025 crediting Cooke's fundraising momentum and noting a stark warning sign for Van Orden: the district saw a roughly 15-point swing between Trump's presidential margin and the 2025 state Supreme Court race result. Sabato's Crystal Ball also rates WI-03 a Toss-Up. Inside Elections holds it at Tilt Republican.
The district's Cook Partisan Voting Index sits at R+3, meaning it has run about three points more Republican than the national average across recent presidential cycles. Donald Trump carried WI-03 by roughly seven points in 2024—and Van Orden still only won by under three.
That gap tells you almost everything about this race.
The District
Wisconsin's 3rd runs along the state's western edge, tracing the Mississippi River from Prairie du Chien north through La Crosse and then east into dairy and manufacturing country around Eau Claire and Stevens Point. It's a largely rural, working-class district where agricultural economics, healthcare access, and energy costs rank high on the issue list.
Democrat Ron Kind held the seat for 26 years before retiring in 2022. Van Orden flipped it that year in a cycle broadly favorable to Republicans. The seat's long competitive history reflects the kind of personal-brand incumbency that often matters more than pure partisan math in single-member districts—but that arithmetic gets tested when national environments shift.
Rebecca Cooke
Cooke, 36, is a nonprofit founder, fundraising consultant, and part-time waitress from Eau Claire. She describes her working-class background as central to her pitch in a district where many voters feel economic pressure from rising costs. This is her third campaign in WI-03: she lost the Democratic primary in 2022, then ran a stronger-than-expected general in 2024, outperforming then-Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic Senate candidates in the district.
That overperformance earned early national backing. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Cooke to its "Red to Blue" program in February 2026, providing staff, training, and fundraising infrastructure—an unusually early institutional commitment. Her primary opponent Emily Berge argued the DCCC had tilted the playing field before voters could weigh in. The primary result—57% for Cooke, 42.9% for Berge—validated the institutional judgment.
Cooke enters the general with substantial labor and organizational support: IBEW Wisconsin State Conference, Laborers International Union, SMART Union, UFCW Local 1743, and the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, along with EMILYs List, House Blue Dogs, and endorsements from more than 15 members of Congress. Her campaign has centered on economic kitchen-table issues—tariff impacts on Wisconsin farmers, healthcare costs, and energy prices—and has tied Van Orden explicitly to the broader Republican agenda on each.
Derrick Van Orden
Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL and published author, first won WI-03 in 2022 and is seeking his third term. He is known for a combative public style that has generated substantial opposition research material—most notably his presence at the January 6, 2021 "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, D.C., which Democrats have continued to raise throughout the campaign cycle.
Van Orden has also faced scrutiny for his congressional attendance record. According to GovTrack data covering his tenure from January 2023 through July 2026, Van Orden missed 96 of 1,886 roll call votes—a 5.1% absentee rate that significantly exceeds the median of 2.0% among sitting members. During the first quarter of 2026, he missed 24.1% of roll call votes.
Van Orden has maintained strong support for the Trump administration's tariff agenda, a position Democrats have attacked by pointing to rising farm bankruptcy filings in Wisconsin. He has also drawn fire from Cooke's campaign over votes affecting Medicaid and rural hospital funding. His supporters argue that aligning with a president who carried the district by seven points is sound politics—and that his critics misrepresent his actual record.
Trump endorsed Van Orden alongside several other at-risk House Republicans earlier this year. The Cooke campaign interpreted the group endorsement as a sign of Van Orden's vulnerability; Van Orden's team cited it as evidence of strong White House support.
The 2024 Anchor
The 2024 result is both the starting point and the most debated data point in this race. Van Orden won by 11,288 votes—51.3% to 48.6%—in a cycle that broadly favored Republicans nationally. Yet Trump carried the same district by roughly seven points, meaning Van Orden ran approximately four points behind Trump's own performance. That structural underperformance of the incumbent relative to the top of the ticket is the central argument for Cooke's viability.
Cook Political Report put it directly when shifting WI-03 to Toss-Up: "Regardless of what the national environment looks like next year, Van Orden is in a different category than a generic Republican. Last year's election results show that he's turned off a significant segment of Trump voters in his district."
Van Orden has acknowledged the arithmetic. After the primary, he said: "I lost to Ron Kind by 10,000 votes. I beat Brad Pfaff by 11,000 votes. I beat Rebecca Cooke by 11,000 votes. This is an 11,000-vote race."
Polling
Four public surveys of the WI-03 general election matchup are available for the 2026 cycle:
| Poll | Dates | Cooke (D) | Van Orden (R) |
|---|---|---|---|
| FM3 Research (D) | June 20–25, 2026 | 50% | 46% |
| Impact Research (D) | May 26–31, 2026 | 50% | 46% |
| Impact Research (D) | Feb 12–17, 2026 | 49% | 48% |
| Public Policy Polling (D) | Oct 14–15, 2025 | 44% | 42% |
All four polls are from Democratic-aligned firms—no publicly available independent or Republican-sponsored surveys have been released. Partisan polling should be read with that caveat clearly in mind. The consistent thread across all four is Cooke leading or tied within the margin of error. A March 2026 campaign survey also reported Van Orden's net favorability underwater at -7 (43% unfavorable vs. 50% favorable). A D+6 national generic congressional ballot environment, as tracked in mid-summer 2026, would place WI-03 at or near structural toss-up territory in most forecasting models.
Fundraising
Both campaigns have built substantial war chests. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Van Orden raised more than $7.5 million from January 2025 through late July 2026. Cooke reported approximately $6.5 million in receipts through mid-July 2026, per FEC data cited in local reporting.
Through the end of 2025, Van Orden held a narrow cash-on-hand advantage—$2.73 million to Cooke's $2.55 million, per FEC filings. Cooke outraised Van Orden in the fourth quarter of 2025 and reported raising more than $2.4 million in the first quarter of 2026 alone. FEC estimates place total combined spending on this race at approximately $12 million across the cycle—a figure that national party committees and affiliated outside groups are positioned to increase significantly in the fall.
A University of Wisconsin–La Crosse political scientist summarized the resource environment to Wisconsin Public Radio: "Both sides, understandably, view this as potentially pivotal in the broader outcome of majority control."
Key Issues
Tariffs and the farm economy. Wisconsin is a major dairy and agricultural state. The Trump administration's tariff policies have created documented economic stress for farmers in western Wisconsin—farm bankruptcy filings rose in 2025 and 2026 after two quiet years. Cooke has made tariffs a central line of attack. Van Orden has defended his support for the tariff agenda.
Healthcare and rural access. The district includes substantial rural areas where hospital access is already constrained. Democratic messaging has focused on Van Orden's votes affecting Medicaid funding and ACA tax credits as threats to rural healthcare infrastructure—including the Mayo Clinic health system, which serves patients across the region. Van Orden voted in favor of extending ACA tax credits at one point, a fact his campaign has highlighted against Democratic attacks.
Energy costs. Fuel and fertilizer prices—elevated by both tariff policy and international events—are a lived reality for WI-03 farmers and households. Both campaigns have tried to claim the cost-of-living issue as their own.
Trump alignment. Van Orden has aligned closely with the Trump administration on most major votes. In a district where Trump won by seven points, that alignment helps with the Republican base. In a district where Van Orden only won by three, it creates exposure with the independent and soft-partisan voters who produced his underperformance relative to Trump.
What the Markets Are Pricing
The 70-cent pricing on Cooke reflects a convergence of factors the market is weighting: consistent polling leads (however partisan their sourcing), strong fundraising, a D+6 national environment, and Van Orden's history of running behind Trump in his own district. The 30-cent price on Van Orden reflects incumbency advantage, the R+3 structural lean, and the real possibility the national environment tightens between now and November.
The spread between market pricing (effectively Lean Democratic) and the structural forecasters (Toss-Up to Tilt Republican) is notable. Markets tend to weight current polling and national environment more heavily; structural models weight historical partisanship and incumbency more heavily. How much the tariff backlash, healthcare cuts, and farm economy anxiety actually move voters in western Wisconsin will determine which framework captures the 2026 reality more accurately.
House Control Context
WI-03 does not exist in a vacuum. Republicans entered the 2026 cycle with a narrow 217–212 House majority. A shift of just a handful of seats determines which party controls the chamber. Cook Political Report rates only 18 House districts nationally as toss-ups—the universe where the majority will actually be decided—and WI-03 is among them.
Cooke's path to victory runs through continued strong national environment, converting her fundraising edge into fall organizing and advertising dominance, and holding together a coalition that consistently outperforms presidential-level Democratic numbers in the district's La Crosse, Eau Claire, and Stevens Point anchors.
Van Orden's path runs through a stabilizing national environment, closing the cash gap, incumbency advantage doing its typical work in rural media markets, and a Cooke campaign that struggles to break through in the district's most conservative counties along the Iowa and Minnesota borders.
November 3 will tell us whether an 11,000-vote margin holds—or whether, in the third attempt at this seat, Cooke finally closes the gap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District a competitive race in 2026? Yes. Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball rate WI-03 as a Toss-Up for 2026. Inside Elections rates it Tilt Republican. The district's Cook Partisan Voting Index is R+3, but incumbent Derrick Van Orden has historically run well behind Trump's margin in the district—a structural vulnerability.
Who are the candidates in WI-03 in 2026? Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL first elected in 2022, faces Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke, a nonprofit founder and waitress from Eau Claire who lost to Van Orden by approximately 11,000 votes in 2024. Both were nominated in the August 11, 2026 primary—Van Orden unopposed, Cooke with 57% over primary opponent Emily Berge.
What happened in the 2024 WI-03 election? Derrick Van Orden won 51.3% to 48.6% over Rebecca Cooke—a margin of approximately 11,000 votes. Donald Trump carried the same district by roughly seven points in the 2024 presidential race, meaning Van Orden ran four points behind Trump's performance in his own district.
What are the key issues in the WI-03 2026 race? Tariff impacts on Wisconsin's agricultural economy, healthcare access in rural areas, energy and fuel costs, and Van Orden's congressional attendance record and January 6 presence are the central issues in campaign messaging from both sides.
When is the WI-03 2026 general election? November 3, 2026.