First-Term GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden Survives Challenge From Waitress Rebecca Cooke
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) is projected to survive a well-funded challenge from Democrat Rebecca Cooke and win reelection in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District.
Van Orden, who was facing his first reelection race, may be best known for being involved in an incident where he was accused of yelling at teenage Senate pages in the U.S. Capitol's rotunda.
Cooke, a waitress at a made-from-scratch, farm-to-table restaurant in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, had waged a high-profile challenge highlighting her longtime local ties, support for reproductive rights and even her job.
Cooke herself reported raising and spending about $4.9 million on the race through mid-October, compared with $5.7 million for Van Orden, according to Federal Election Commission data
Cooke was also picked for the "Red to Blue" program run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aimed at boosting competitive candidates in battleground races.
Van Orden had been slightly favored to win, as the Cook Political Report had listed the race as "lean Republican," the category just above toss-up. An October poll commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed Cooke up by 1 percentage point, well within the margin for error. Prior to Van Orden's election in 2022, the district had been represented by Democratic moderate Ron Kind.
Van Orden generated headlines in July 2023, when a group of Senate interns, high school juniors who spend a few weeks in Washington running paperwork between senators, their offices and the Senate floor, accused him of shouting at them one evening while they were resting in the rotunda, the interior portion of the U.S. Capitol's famous dome.
"Wake the f‐‐‐ up you little s‐‐‐‐. ... What the f‐‐‐ are you all doing? Get the f‐‐‐ out of here. You are defiling the space you [pieces of s‐‐‐]," Van Orden reportedly told the pages, according to The Hill newspaper , which cited an account given by one of the pages.
The pages had stopped to lie on the floor and take pictures of the ceiling of the rotunda, which is crowded with tourists during the day. While Van Orden had said he was trying to get the pages to show respect for their surroundings, he received bipartisan criticism for the outburst.
