Author’s Note: Other 2026 forecasts can be found in the Central File.
I. The Race
Derrick Van Orden (Republican) is a retired Navy SEAL and small business owner who flipped WI-3 in the 2022 Republican House takeover. He defeated his 2026 opponent in 2024 by a margin of +2.7% and is currently seeking a third term in the U.S. House.
Rebecca Cooke (Democrat) makes her third run at WI-3 after having lost the Democrat primary in 2022 and to Van Orden in 2024. She is aiming for the proven Wisconsin Democrat platform of “salt of the earth, moderate, boring midwestern white woman” that has won them one seat after another on the State Supreme Court, emphasizing her dairy farm roots.
II. District Geography
Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District (WI-3) is a massive district. It stretches from the outskirts of Minnesota’s Twin Cities all the way to the Illinois state line, and halfway across Wisconsin. It contains all or parts of 19 counties, including Democrat leaners Eau Claire and La Crosse Counties, which together make up over 30% of the population. WI-3 has traditional Democrat undertones and only began to trend Republican under Donald Trump and the MAGA movement’s success with the white working class. The problem with WI-3 this year is that Trump isn’t on the ticket. Pay attention to the transformation of the southwest quadrant of Wisconsin from Obama’s 2008 statewide win all the way through Trump’s 2024 win:
Trump’s tremendous progress in WI-3 was instrumental in his 2016 flip of Wisconsin, his 2020 should-have-won campaign, and his 2024 recapture. Here are the presidential margins in today’s boundaries:
Presidential Margins
On all three occasions, Trump ran ahead of the GOP nominee for U.S. House. Trump’s presence on the ballot is important for getting these voters to turn out and change sides, given that they all widely supported Obama twice.
Key Statistics
89.1% White, 3.3% Hispanic
56.9% Rural, 43.1% Urban
Market Assessment
Polymarket bettors are behind Cooke, valuing her shares at 77 cents each.
IV. History
Ron Kind, a blue dog Democrat from La Crosse, won the open WI-3 seat in what was then a rare Democrat victory in the district. He held the seat for more than two decades, surviving the 2010 and 2014 Republican waves and even running uncontested in 2016, when Trump won the state. After a close call against Van Orden in 2020, with a margin of just +2.7%, a whiff of the pro-Trump trend in the district plus a view of a coming 2022 Republican House popular vote victory were enough to get Kind to call it a career. Van Orden took the open seat by a margin of 3.7%:
Cooke had lost the 2022 Democrat primary to Brad Pfaff, but she won it in 2024 for the right to challenge Van Orden. Riding shotgun with Trump, he held his seat:
His margin was +2.7%, just 11,256 votes. He ran 4.2% behind Trump’s margin in the district. Having won the seat twice, once in a House popular vote midterm and again in a presidential win of Wisconsin, Van Orden finds himself facing headwinds for the first time in 2026, and in a similar position such as the one Kind found himself in looking at 2022.
V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results
Van Orden ran unopposed this year for the GOP nomination. Cooke prevailed over Emily Berge, taking 60.0% of the vote.