In a little bit of surprise, Sen Bernie Sanders endorsed Rebecca Cooke, who is running against Rep. Drunken Van Orden. The move was unusual enough that it made national news:
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Thursday announced his endorsement of Democrat Rebecca Cooke for Congress in Wisconsin’s 3rd District — making a foray into one of a handful of districts that could decide the next House majority, which President Donald Trump carried by 7 points less than a year ago.
“Rebecca is a working-class fighter who developed her populist roots in rural Western Wisconsin. A daughter of farmers, a waitress and a small business owner — she’s lived through failed policies from Washington elites and is ready to deliver tangible outcomes that working people will actually feel,” Sanders said in a statement shared first with NBC News.
Sanders’ endorsement brings renewed national attention to a race that Cooke lost by less than 3 percentage points last year as GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden earned a second term. And it also highlights a notable cross-section of support for Cooke — who has also been endorsed by the Blue Dog Democrats' PAC, a longtime supporter of party moderates — as Democrats in Washington and around the country review the party's policy platforms, personalities and coalitions after they suffered defeat to Trump in the 2024 election.
Cooke said that Bernie is no bullshit and that she admired how he managed to get things done while staying true to his values. She stated that she had voted for Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary.
At first glance, it seems that politics do indeed make for strange bedfellows. But both Sanders and Cooke have strongly supported working families, worker rights and organized labor. This alone could explain their affinity for each other. But regardless of their reasoning, I know of a lot of Wisconsinites who are damn glad to have Sanders on Cooke's side.
