One year ago, Rebecca Cooke lost the Third Congressional District Democratic primary election.
One year later, Cooke is running again for the Third District seat, won by Republican Derrick Van Orden over state Sen. Brad Pfaff (D–Onalaska), who won the four-way Democratic primary.
The primary is next Aug. 20, and the general election — which will include the race for president and the U.S. Senate seat now held by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D–Wisconsin) — is Nov. 5, 2024.
Cooke held a Cooke-Out campaign kickoff in Mound View Park Sunday, with 20 in attendance.
“When I was out at dairy breakfasts last [election] cycle, I was going all over the place meeting folks, working the lines and introducing myself to people and I didn’t lead with ‘Hi, I’m Rebecca Cooke, I’m a Democrat,’ or people would walk right past me,” she said. “I introduced myself as ‘Hi, I’m Rebecca Cooke, I grew up on a dairy farm in Eau Claire, these are my values and this is what I believe in.
“I think there is incredible polarization in our country right now on both sides of the aisle, and we’re at a crossroads. I’m running for Congress in particular because I feel like Washington is full of a lot of elites that can’t identify with working-class folks. And with my working-class lived experiences I think I bring a deep level of understanding and an ability to talk with people on those issues. Talking from a values perspective vs. a political/ideological perspective I think is where you start to find common ground, because I think there are a lot of shared values on both sides of the aisle with west central Wisconsinites if you take the time to find them and don’t pit people against one other.”
Cooke won Grant County and 10 other of the district’s 19 counties but lost to Pfaff because, she said, “I was outspent by most of our opponents, so we really made a dollar stretch and did a lot of grassroots organizing. I wasn’t endorsed by the outgoing Congressman, I wasn’t a sitting state senator; those were some of the things that I think worked against me last time. I think we were able to do a lot on a limited budget without a lot of name ID.”
Cooke said she “was strongly considering” running “after the election because I had performed so well in the primary. … Grant County is 3½ hours from where I live, so to be able to have the time to really build a robust campaign that’s necessary to get my message out, I wanted to start early.”
Cooke is focused on economic issues “that are really impacting working families here in west central Wisconsin.” She favors expanding Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing, “the things that deteriorate as people age.”
Cooke closed her Eau Claire-area business because “a lot of rising costs, it became difficult for Main Street businesses to survive.” She also favors increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. She also wants to expand federal block grants to address affordable housing, an issue that comes up on the campaign trail “in rural communities where a lot of housing has aged out and needs updates.”
Other campaign issues carried over from her 2022 campaign include “continuing to fight for Wisconsin’s original entrepreneur, the daily farmer. I grew up on a dairy farm up in the Eau Claire area, so I’m working to fight for fair milk prices.”
Cooke wants to institute into federal law the abortion rights provisions of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that was overturned last year.
Cooke also favors the proposed Protecting the Right to Organize Act for union employees, which she said would overturn the 2011 Act 10 public employee collective bargaining restrictions.
“I’m running to represent my constituents and that’s what I’ll be elected to,” she said,
“not play partisan politics.”
