Rebecca Cooke Will Face GOP Incumbent After Winning Tough Wisconsin Primary

Rebecca Cooke delivers her victory speech after winning the Wisconsin Third District Democratic primary on Aug. 13, 2024. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)

EAU CLAIRE, Wis.—Rebecca Cooke came out ahead in the Democrats’ closely fought primary in Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District.

The Associated Press declared her the victor at 10:45 p.m. local time.

With 90 percent of the total tallied, she had 49.2 percent of the vote, a 7-point lead over her chief rival, state Rep. Katrina Shankland.

“I think we’ve been under-estimated time and time again,” she said her victory speech at The Good Wives, a restaurant where she works as a waitress.

The Aug. 13 victory sets Cooke up to face incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who defeated Democrat state Sen. Brad Pfaff by 3.7 percent in 2022.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting the district in the hopes of flipping it. Republicans only narrowly control the U.S. House, and Democrats will likewise be defending their close Senate majority while facing an unfavorable map in that chamber.

Cooke came out the winner against Shankland, who has served in the State Assembly since 2013, and Eric Wilson, an information technology professional working in health care management.

Cooke is the founder of the nonprofit Red Letter Grant and a member of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation appointed by Gov. Tony Evers.

With 90 percent of the vote counted, Shankland came in second with 41.9 percent, while Wilson came in third with 8.8 percent.

Cooke spoke positively of both her opponents in her victory speech. The late evening’s result cap off an aggressive race that saw sniping among multiple Democratic hopefuls along with significant outside spending.

Wisconsinites vote on Aug. 13, 2024, at a Lutheran church in Eau Claire. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)

Shankland received the backing of gun control activist David Hogg and Hogg’s PAC, Leaders We Deserve. The organization spent $194,000 on digital ads in connection with the candidate, according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

Hogg posted about his on-the-ground campaigning for Shankland on X.

“Just did my first ever [TV] interview from a motel in rural Wisconsin. Doing everything I can to get Katrina Shankland elected to Congress!” he wrote.

Cooke was backed by outside money, too. FEC records show that New Democrat Majority PAC spent $150,800 to oppose Shankland. The group released ads criticizing the candidate.

Cooke has come under scrutiny for an alleged conflict of interest related to her nonprofit, Red Letter Grants, and a business that received a grant from the organization.

According to the U.S. House Financial Disclosure Report that Cooke filed as a congressional candidate, she received $2,256 in income in 2022 working as a waitress at The Good Wives, a restaurant that received a grant from her nonprofit the same year, and the same place she held her primary election night party.

In an email to The Epoch Times, Ella and Emily Wesenberg, lead staff at The Good Wives, said they didn’t see how this would be a conflict of interest.

“The Red Letter Grant recipients are determined by a judging panel, not Rebecca herself,” they said. “We received the grant before we were open for business and before we ever met Rebecca. The funds were allocated before we hired her.”

Red Letter Grant’s website states that in both regions where it provides financial awards, the panel of judges is made up “of one grant recipient, one carry-over judge and two new judges each year.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Cooke and Red Letter Grant for comment.

Cooke garnered endorsements from various local Democrats and lawmakers from elsewhere in the United States, including Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s Second Congressional District, which broke for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

The moderate Blue Dogs PAC also backed Cooke, as did the state’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a key node for Democrats’ political organizing.

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO endorsed Shankland, as did Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and other local Democrats, generally those on the left flank of the party.

Wilson gained endorsements from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) as well as Democrats across the district, particularly in Menomonie, Eau Claire, and other parts of the north half of the district.

The Third District spans much of western Wisconsin near the Mississippi River, beginning at the state’s southern border. It also includes many counties that flipped from then President Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016, a pattern that Cooke noted in her victory speech on Aug. 13.

“We haven’t had a strong advocate in Washington fighting for the resources that we need here, and so that’s where I want to be that voice and be that advocate,” Wilson told The Epoch Times while canvassing in Chippewa Falls on Aug. 11.

Some voters in the district expressed support for Cooke to The Epoch Times.

“Rebecca Cooke seems pretty interesting,” Aidan Leddick said outside the Lutheran church in Eau Claire where had just voted.

“A little bit of infighting isn’t the worst thing that could happen,” he said when asked about the disputes among Democrats in the Third.

Outside the same polling place, Brandon Winger voiced frustration that he couldn’t vote for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He did not take the Democratic ballot, meaning he could not cast a vote for Cooke. Yet he voiced regret that the partisan design of Wisconsin’s primaries meant he couldn’t support her.

Brandon Winger, a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. supporter, outside a polling place in Eau Claire, Wis., on. Aug. 13, 2024. "I lost a fistfight with a lawnmower." (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)

In Mauston, Wis., in the same building as the Juneau County Democratic Party, Diane Dahl declined to say who she supported in the Third District competition. She said it had been a source of conflict.

In her victory speech, Cooke hit notes that seemed intended to resonate with a more conservative audience while also highlighting liberal and progressive issues. She told the crowd she had been praying for many people she had met in the district before noting that abortion rights were big concern for her.