Greetings all. Sending along one of my favorite candidate conversations of the cycle so far, one we just completed with Rebecca Cooke, who’s running in the Third District of Wisconsin. One of the things I’ve learned in my many years in the game is that good candidates, those who win, get stronger, better, and more confident as the cycle goes on. They grow, and get bigger and more powerful as politicians and orators. As you will see in our conversation Rebecca Cooke has become one of those candidates who grow and become more powerful as the race goes on. It’s a terrific and inspiring discussion - get to it as soon as you can.
An excerpt:
“As I look at some of the other people that are running - especially in the Midwest, some of the top races in this country right now are in the heartland - I think about some of the really strong women that are running… I think about someone like Christina Bohannan in Iowa, you know, who grew up in a super small town, was raised in a trailer, has gone on to really fight for working families. She remembers that lived experience, right, in the same way I remember our lived experience of selling our cattle.”
“That’s what is different… we’ve had leaders really emerge that have lived these failed policies and they want to fight… you can’t manufacture that kind of authenticity. There are exciting, fresh voices it turns out… like a Jamie Ager down in North Carolina, or Bob Brooks - those are people that I really connect with because we have some similar lived experiences and we’re I think all running for office to actually be public servants.”
Yes here at Hopium we’ve heard from these “exciting, fresh voices” from communities left behind across the country, who are connecting powerfully with their voters, and channeling something new that has emerged from our candidates this cycle - something I am calling a new politics of virtue. I think you will enjoy hearing Rebecca reflect on how Democrats are now running this time, and how she says it is “different.”
As a reminder in 2024 Cooke ran in WI-03 and overperformed Harris in the district, losing by a little less than 3 points in a district Trump won by more than 7 (Downballot).
With the national tide shifting 7 to 10 points districts like WI-03 become very hard for Republicans to defend. Civiqs has Trump’s approval rating in Wisconsin at 41%-55% right now, a huge drop in a state he carried in 2024. A recent internal poll from the Cooke campaign had her up 4, 50%-46%, which is very plausible given the shift in the national political landscape. What also makes this district so hard to defend is that Van Orden, like so many vulnerable House incumbents, has voted for the Iran War and higher prices; the tariffs, higher costs, and direct material harm to small businesses and farmers; the gutting cuts to health care, causing prices to rise and care harder to find while giving the wealthiest among enormous tax cuts.
I hope you will donate to Rebecca’s campaign today either through our Winning The House campaign or by donating to her directly. Simply this is one of our very best pick up opportunities in the country, and Rebecca Cooke is one of our best candidates running this cycle.
WI-3 is one of six House districts Trump has stumped in so far, meaning that the Rs view Van Orden as among their most endangered incumbents (here are the other districts Trump has visited - IA-1 and IA-3 (Bohannan and Trone Garriott), NY-17 (Conley), PA-7 (Brooks) and PA-8 (Cognetti).
From Politico:
As Cooke tells us in our conversation Trump spent a great deal of his event with Van Orden talking about, you guessed it, that thing all farmers in the district wanted to hear about - The Reflecting Pool renovations! It was an incredible fiasco!
Here’s the coverage from The Independent showing why Trump campaigning for Republicans this cycle may feel a bit like Russian Roulette:
President Donald Trump traveled to Wisconsin for a roundtable event where he rambled through his administration’s agenda and showed farmers printed pictures of his Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool project.
Despite the Chippewa Falls event being labeled as a roundtable, it was more of a rally-style gathering with Trump doing the majority of the talking and then asking other participants at the table to speak “quickly” so he could “get back to fighting a war.”
Trump spent about 45 minutes on Friday boasting about his perceived wins upon returning to the White House while going off on tangents about the Iran war, which he started at the end of February, border security and his latest passion project in Washington, D.C.
Early in his speech — which he gave sitting down at a horseshoe-shaped table with the likes of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden — Trump showed off a graphic about the size of his reflecting pool compared to famous skyscrapers.
“It’s double and triple the size in terms of area” of the Willis Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center in New York City, Trump said of the reflecting pool while holding up a graphic printed on computer paper.
Anyway, enjoy this wonderful interview with one our very best candidates this cycle, Rebecca Cooke, fighting hard in WI-03, and please consider supporting her today! - Simon
Here’s our first conversation with Rebecca from earlier this spring:
Biography - Rebecca Cooke, US House Candidate Running in WI-03
As a small business owner and nonprofit leader, Rebecca Cooke has focused her career on building community and serving others. Born and raised on an Eau Claire dairy farm and appointed by Governor Tony Evers to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Rebecca knows the economic and social challenges facing the small towns and rural communities for which she’s fiercely advocated for, from the kitchen table to the board room. While Rebecca runs for Congress 7 days a week, she also waitresses. She believes we need more working class voices in Congress – folks who aren’t so far left or so far right but want work across the aisle to deliver for working families.
The Cooke family settled in the Independence area of newly-formed Buffalo County in 1856 and began generations of working Wisconsin land and serving their community and country. Early patriarch Chauncey Cooke was an abolitionist who joined the Union Army at 16 years old and fought in the Civil War. Those values of service run strong through Rebecca’s family as ancestors served America in both World Wars, her grandfather was a Marine in Korea before coming home to work a union job in Eau Claire’s paper mill, and her father served as a medic at Walter Reed Hospital, caring for wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam. Her brother continued that tradition, serving in the Navy before returning home to farm in Eau Claire and ultimately joining the Madison Fire Department.
Rebecca’s father took over the family dairy farm in Eau Claire after marrying her mother and continued on a decades long legacy. The youngest of three children, Rebecca began working on the farm and helping her mom with chores at a young age.
Like most Wisconsin farm families, money was always tight. Rebecca’s parents were frugal and both had side jobs off the farm to support their family of five. Yet they were still a family that would give the shirts off their backs to help their neighbors – the first to the door with a casserole, volunteering as Sunday school teachers, hosting exchange students from across the world and giving opportunities to farm workers who needed a second chance. Rebecca’s parents taught her to be a servant leader and emphasized the values of hard work, personal responsibility, honesty, and loyalty. She learned to show up for people because it is the right thing to do, not because of what was in it for her. Growing up showing cattle at fairs throughout the state, Rebecca became active in 4-H and later served as president of her club through high school.
Rebecca later went to work electing Democrats to public office around the country before coming home to Eau Claire and using her savings to open a small retail business – Red’s Mercantile – that sourced goods from independent makers locally and throughout the country. Looking to help other local entrepreneurs she founded the Red Letter Grant in 2016, a nonprofit that supports and empowers female entrepreneurs by providing start-up capital, technical assistance and authentic networking opportunities throughout a ten county region of western Wisconsin. The Red Letter Grant has aided in the launch over over 50 small businesses throughout Western Wisconsin.
Governor Tony Evers took notice of Rebecca’s business leadership and activism in the entrepreneurship ecosystem by making her the youngest appointee to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, where she was a vocal member of the board and co-chair of the newly formed Entrepreneurship & Innovation committee. Rebecca works with other business leaders and members of both parties to provide opportunities for Wisconsin residents.
Now, Rebecca is running for Congress to better serve communities across Wisconsin, put people first and provide more opportunities for success, and will be a relentless fighter for our way of life.
