Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden wasted no time lining up his 2028 campaign after losing a bruising reelection bid for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District last week.
The congressman submitted a statement of candidacy — first reported by Wisconsin radio station WIZM — to the Federal Election Commission on Friday and officially designated Van Orden for Congress as his principal campaign committee.
Van Orden’s new bid is likely to set up his third campaign against Rep.-elect Rebecca Cooke, who beat him by more than 6 percentage points on Tuesday as Democrats secured major victories across the country.
Van Orden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Cooke’s campaign declined to comment.
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Democrats had been targeting Van Orden’s district this year after Cooke came less than 3 percentage points from beating him in 2024.
Cooke arrived in Washington this week alongside her fellow freshman lawmakers for their orientation, saying she’s excited to be able to “govern in a majority” to get things done.
“To be able to put this much work and then to get here, I am really excited to be able to do the things we’ve been talking about and to make good on those promises,” she told reporters on Capitol Hill.
The battle for Wisconsin’s 3rd District turned sour at times between Van Orden and Cooke. The Republican congressman posted AI deepfake videos falsely attributing statements to Cooke and depicting her in fabricated scenarios. In one video posted Aug. 4, an AI-generated version of Cooke said she intends to “take advantage of as much corruption as possible and give every illegal alien free health care.”
On Sept. 30, an attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Van Orden on behalf of Cooke’s campaign, asserting that she could seek a defamation claim over the statements falsely attributed to her. Van Orden hit back in a statement saying Cooke has been running attack ads with “false claims” against him.
The Democrat worked as a waitress and was raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, a background she highlighted on the campaign trail.
“Between now and January you’ll still see me working at the restaurant in Eau Claire,” Cooke wrote Friday on X before departing Wisconsin. “I got debt and bills to pay! So proud to be a voice to embolden the working class and reclaim rural power in Congress.”
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