LA CROSSE, Wis. — Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R) is running in one of the country’s most competitive House districts, in a party where many of his colleagues are distancing themselves from an unpopular president.
Van Orden has taken the opposite tack.
“Donald Trump is always welcome in my district,” he said in an interview. “He won this district three times in a row, and he’s been doing great things for America.”
Van Orden, who was first elected to Congress four years ago, has built his career as a brash firebrand and — unlike many other swing-district Republicans — is doing little to back away from the MAGA movement in which he built his reputation. He has voted with the president nearly all of the time, a record that got more Trump-supportive in this election year, according to Roll Call.
Van Orden, 57, campaigned with Trump in his district this year and attended Trump’s midterm convention in Texas last month. Vice President JD Vance campaigned with Van Orden, too. A parade of the president’s Cabinet members have stopped by, as well. Van Orden recently appeared with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is synonymous to many voters with the unpopular war in Iran.
Van Orden’s district runs along the Mississippi River in southwestern Wisconsin and borders three states: Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Barack Obama won the district twice. Trump won it three times.
Van Orden, known as a firebrand right-wing agitator, was near the U.S. Capitol grounds during the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, as a citizen not yet elected to office, as part of the pro-Trump “Save America” group seeking to overturn the election. He didn’t enter the building and wasn’t charged but has expressed support for the cause.
More recently, he expressed enthusiasm for Hegseth’s now-abandoned proposal to live-stream a military execution, writing “vollenteer” in a post on X.
Van Orden twice carried the district with smaller margins than other Republicans on the Wisconsin ballot, including Trump.
“Van Orden is blindly following Trump and thinking that that’s going to save him in the midterms,” said Rebecca Cooke, his Democratic opponent this year who lost to him by three percentage points in 2024, compared with Trump’s eight-point margin in the district. “I think he’s going to be really awakened when we flip the seat from red to blue.”
But he says Cooke is the one who is extreme. At a recent campaign stop at a rustic tavern overlooking the Mississippi River, he touted his work for veterans, farmers and gun owners and then laid into Cooke, calling her a pretend moderate whom he has nicknamed “The Crooked One.”
“I joined the Navy to fight the Soviets,” he said, referencing his long military career that included time as a Navy SEAL before he was elected to Congress in 2022. “She’s a professional political consultant that is a socialist running for Congress.”
Cooke, 38, grew up in the district and has worked as a political consultant and nonprofit founder while also waitressing part-time.
Van Orden has altered his rhetoric only slightly in the waning days of the campaign. He is less likely to mention Trump on the stump and recently invoked a bipartisan friendship with Rep. Jonathan Jackson, a Chicago Democrat.
And, in a recent debate with Cooke, he mentioned breaking with the president in January as one of 17 Republicans in the House to support extending Affordable Care Act subsidies.
“This is a difficult time for our party because there’s a war in Iran and gas prices are high,” he acknowledged at the debate. “People, a lot of people, are very dissatisfied with all of that.”
Disgusted, but still unsure about vote
Randy Schmidt owns a 4,000-cow dairy farm that employs 50 people in rural Richland County. Voters in outlying areas have powered Van Orden’s previous two victories. He won Richland by eight percentage points in 2024, trailing Trump’s 14-point margin there. Cooke and other Democrats have run up big margins in La Crosse and Eau Claire, the district’s largest cities.
Schmidt almost always votes Republican. But he said he is furious with Trump and his congressional backers, including Van Orden, over the Iran war, heavy tariffs and other federal actions that have spiked costs for diesel fuel, fertilizer and health insurance during this year’s harvest season.
“We’re almost in crisis mode out here in farm country,” he said. “I do worry for my fellow farmers.”
Schmidt hasn’t made up his mind about backing Van Orden or Cooke.
“People are just frustrated,” he said. “It’s not going to be good for the Republicans, but I’m not sure the Democrats have any answers. The only answer they have is they’re not Republicans.”
One positive for Van Orden, according to farmers: He’s on the House Agriculture Committee, which has oversight of the district’s largest industry.
“Derrick has actually gone to work to represent those people,” said Bill Feehan, vice chairman of the Wisconsin GOP, who has supported Van Orden since his first race, in 2020, in which he failed to unseat longtime U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat.
But Cooke isn’t ready to cede rural votes. She grew up on a dairy farm near Eau Claire and has been campaigning throughout the countryside since her first congressional run in 2022, when she lost in the Democratic primary. A campaign event, “a town hall at the tank,” featured her talking with voters filling up their gas tanks.
“She knows how hard it is right now for farmers to make ends meet,” said Kind, who represented the area as a centrist Democrat for 26 years and beat Van Orden by 10,000 votes in his last race. “I’ve never seen a bigger farm crisis than the one that we have right now.”
Both candidates have outlined agricultural policy approaches, but they haven’t necessarily resonated. Schmidt said he doesn’t feel as if he has gotten much clarity on where the candidates stand on issues and feels deluged by the negative ads.
It is one of the most expensive House races in the country. Cooke dramatically outraised Van Orden in the most recent reporting period, $3.4 million to $1.3 million.
Van Orden’s campaign and allied groups have run a flood of negative ads against Cooke, including AI-generated online videos that Cooke has called defamatory. Her campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter, which Van Orden mocked, leading to a formal complaint with the state’s Ethics Commission. Cooke has a new ad with voters sitting with the candidate and decrying the Van Orden campaign’s “AI slop.”
“I’d like to hear some real meat and potatoes of what they really will do,” Schmidt said, “what people are standing for, because I really don’t know.”
Schmidt will take a break from the harvest and cast a ballot. He is just not sure for whom yet.
Democrats see opportunity
Cooke’s calm demeanor and focus on her part-time work as a waitress in the district mark a noticeable difference from the adrenalized campaign style of Van Orden. She survived a Democratic primary in August and has been able to build momentum since.
“The fact that she’s now on her third campaign for this district is enormously significant,” said Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin’s La Crosse campus who provides commentary on a popular local radio show. “She’s coming in with established name recognition, and she’s coming in with a healthy mailing list and base of campaign contributors.”
Van Orden, by embracing Trump and MAGA, is counting on increasing Republican turnout, despite the tough environment.
“The theory of the case is that this election is going to come down to mobilizing,” Chergosky said. “Trump’s mobilization power is enormous. He mobilizes people who are often disaffected from politics.”
Van Orden recently said he is focused on galvanizing thousands of people in Wisconsin who have hunting licenses but don’t regularly vote.
Van Orden’s two previous victories came in favorable political environments. In 2022, it was a midterm year when Republicans won back control of the U.S. House with Biden as president. In 2024, Trump was on the ballot.
This year, Democrats would seem to have an advantage drawing out voters, given the general anti-Trump mood.
The race was initially rated as a toss-up by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report (no relation to Cooke, the candidate) but was recently shifted to “Leans Democrat.”
“If you get out and you vote, and get 10 of your friends to vote, this House is staying red,” Van Orden told supporters recently. “If you don’t, it’s over. There is no plan B.”
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