Sanders Campaigns With Cooke in Eau Claire as Wisconsin House Race Enters Final Stretch

Sanders Campaigns With Cooke in Eau Claire as Wisconsin House Race Enters Final Stretch

Introduction

United States Senator Bernie Sanders joined Democratic congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke at a get-out-the-vote rally and canvass in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Sunday, October 25, with nine days remaining before the November 3 midterm election.

The event, reported October 26 by The Madison Focal, combined a public rally with door-to-door canvassing — the kind of late-campaign mobilization drive both parties now run in their most competitive districts. Cooke is challenging Republican incumbent Representative Derrick Van Orden. Sanders and Cooke focused their remarks on affordability, government accountability, and rural hospitals, according to the event organizers.

The Wisconsin stop is a reminder that the battle for the House will not be decided only in the Senate battlegrounds that dominate national headlines. House races in districts like the one Cooke is contesting — where a challenger must persuade voters to remove an incumbent — are where a House majority is actually won or lost, seat by seat. And in the final nine days, both parties are deploying their most recognizable figures to exactly those districts.

This article reports what happened in Eau Claire, what Sanders and Cooke said, how Van Orden's office responded, and why a single House race in western Wisconsin matters to the national fight for control of Congress.

The Eau Claire Rally and Canvass

The event took place in Eau Claire, in western Wisconsin, on Sunday, October 25. According to The Madison Focal's report, Sanders joined Cooke at a get-out-the-vote rally and canvassing event, urging supporters to vote in the November 3 midterm election.

The format matters. A rally energizes supporters who are already committed. A canvass — volunteers going door to door — reaches voters who may not yet have decided, or who may need a reminder to return a mail ballot or to find their early-voting location. Combining the two in a single visit is a standard closing-week tactic: the rally generates the crowd and the coverage, and the canvass turns that energy into direct voter contact on the same day.

Sanders and Cooke discussed three themes at the event, according to the organizers: affordability, government accountability, and rural hospitals. Those three issues, taken together, sketch the campaign Cooke is running. Affordability speaks to the cost-of-living pressures that have dominated the 2026 campaign in state after state, from grocery prices to housing costs. Government accountability speaks to voters' frustrations with how Washington operates. Rural hospitals speak to a specifically local anxiety in western Wisconsin, where access to health care outside the major cities depends on smaller facilities whose finances are often precarious.

The report does not detail specific policy proposals Cooke advanced at the event, and this article does not invent any. What is documented is the framing: a challenger campaign organized around household costs, trust in government, and the survival of rural health care — and a national figure lending his presence to that message in its final days.

Sanders: "The Most Important Midterm Election in the Modern History"

Sanders gave the Eau Claire crowd the starkest possible framing of the stakes. He called the election exceptionally consequential, saying, in the words reported by The Madison Focal:

"In my view this is the most important midterm election in the modern history in our country and maybe even the history of our country."

That is a large claim, and it is worth noting exactly what kind of claim it is. It is a campaign-trail assessment from a senator campaigning for a candidate in his party's effort to win the House — not a historical ranking, and not a neutral measure. Sanders has used similar language in past campaigns, and other prominent figures in both parties have made comparable claims about their own elections. The significance of the line lies less in its literal historical accuracy than in what it signals about Democratic strategy in the closing days: an appeal to urgency, aimed at voters who might otherwise sit out a midterm, and at volunteers being asked to spend the final nine days canvassing.

Sanders' presence in Eau Claire is itself part of that strategy. National figures do not travel to House districts in the final stretch unless their party believes the race is winnable and that a visit can move turnout. His appearance alongside Cooke is a signal — to donors, to volunteers, and to voters — that the national party regards this seat as contested and worth contesting to the end.

For Cooke, the benefit is straightforward: standing beside one of the most recognizable figures in American progressive politics gives a challenger campaign visibility it could not buy. For Sanders, the benefit is the reverse: every House seat his party gains brings it closer to a majority, and a majority is what would give his legislative priorities a vehicle in the next Congress.

Cooke's Pitch: Flip the Seat, Win the House

Cooke's own message at the event, as reported, was direct. She said she believed a united effort could flip the seat and help Democrats win control of the House.

That sentence contains the whole logic of a challenger campaign in a midterm year. House control is decided by 218 seats. No single race delivers a majority on its own, but each flipped seat moves the total, and a challenger who wins in a district held by the other party contributes twice over: one fewer seat for the incumbent party, one more for the challenger party. Cooke framed her race in exactly those terms — not only as a local contest, but as one piece of a national effort.

Her remarks referred to nine days until Election Day, November 3 — a countdown that underscores how little campaigning time remains. In the final nine days, the priorities of a campaign shift. Persuasion still matters, but mobilization matters more: making sure supporters know where and when to vote, that early voting is available, and that a mail ballot, once received, is returned. The canvass that followed the rally is the practical expression of that shift.

The report does not cite polling for the Cooke–Van Orden race, and this article does not supply any. Readers should therefore treat the race's competitiveness as Cooke and Sanders present it — a seat they believe can flip — rather than as a measured fact. What is verifiable is the campaign activity itself: a sitting senator travelled to Eau Claire nine days before the election to campaign for the challenger, which is not something a party does for a race it has written off.

Van Orden's Response

Van Orden's office responded to the Sanders visit with a sharp criticism of both the senator and Cooke, according to The Madison Focal's report.

The office described Sanders as a "millionaire socialist" and said his policies would mean bigger government and higher taxes. The statement also accused Cooke of misrepresenting her working-class background.

Two cautions apply to that response, and The Madison Focal's report itself supplies the first of them: those were claims from Van Orden's office, and no evidence supporting the accusations was included in the statement provided. This article therefore reports the criticism as Van Orden's office's characterization, not as an established fact about either Sanders or Cooke.

The second caution is about what the response reveals strategically. An incumbent's office that chooses to attack the visiting national figure, rather than ignoring the visit, is treating the visit as a threat worth answering. The attack lines — socialism, taxes, authenticity — are familiar ones in Republican campaigns against Democratic challengers who campaign with progressive figures. Their use here suggests Van Orden's campaign sees the Sanders association as a vulnerability it can exploit with its own voters, even as Cooke's campaign sees it as a strength with hers. Both campaigns, in other words, are playing to different audiences in the same district — which is usually a sign of a genuinely contested race.

The report does not record any direct response from Cooke to Van Orden's office's accusations, and this article does not invent one.

Why a Wisconsin House Race Matters Nationally

House races rarely receive the attention lavished on Senate contests, but they decide something the Senate cannot: which party writes the House's agenda, controls its committees, and decides which bills reach the floor.

The current House is held by Republicans by a narrow margin — 218 to 212, with five vacancies, according to recent summaries of the chamber's composition. That narrowness is why a race in western Wisconsin matters far beyond Wisconsin. If Democrats are to win the House, they must flip a net number of seats currently held by Republicans. Each challenger victory counts. Each incumbent who survives counts in the other direction.

Wisconsin itself is a state where both parties have reasons to invest heavily in the final days. The state has been among the closest in recent presidential elections, and its mix of urban centers, suburbs, and rural communities means that statewide and district-level races alike can turn on small shifts in turnout. A get-out-the-vote operation in Eau Claire is not a symbolic gesture in that context; it is the practical work of finding a few thousand additional voters in a district where the margin may be decided by exactly that kind of effort.

The national polling backdrop also helps explain the urgency on both sides. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll found Democrats leading Republicans 47 percent to 35 percent on the generic congressional ballot, and 78 percent of Democratic voters said it really matters which party wins, compared with 69 percent of Republican supporters, according to a NorthJersey summary of recent polling. Those figures describe a national mood, not any single district — a district race is decided by its own voters, not by a national average — but they explain why Democrats believe the House is winnable and why Republicans are fighting to hold seats like Van Orden's.

Separately, Wisconsin's governor's race is also competitive: the DaveManuel midterm tracker, updated October 26, puts Democrat Crowley ahead of Republican Tiffany by 4.0 points in its polling average for the governor's race, with traders pricing the Democrat at 79 to 81 cents on Kalshi and Polymarket. That is a different race from Cooke's House contest, but it means Wisconsin voters are being courted simultaneously for the governor's mansion and for Congress — and that turnout efforts for one race can lift the other.

What Happens Next in the Race

With nine days to go, the remaining calendar is short and crowded. Early voting is already underway in many states, and Wisconsin voters who have not yet cast a ballot will face the final push from both campaigns: more canvassing, more advertising, more surrogate visits, and a final weekend of get-out-the-vote activity before Election Day on November 3.

For Cooke, the test of the Eau Claire visit will be whether it translates into canvassing capacity — volunteers recruited at the rally who actually knock on doors in the days that follow — and into turnout among the voters those volunteers reach. For Van Orden, the test will be whether his counter-message — that Cooke's association with Sanders reveals something about how she would govern — persuades the district's persuadable voters more than Cooke's message about affordability and rural hospitals does.

Neither outcome is predictable from a single rally. Rallies do not vote; voters do. But the fact that both campaigns are fighting publicly over the meaning of a single Sunday visit, nine days before the election, tells its own story about how this race is viewed from inside: as a contest still open, still being fought, and still capable of going either way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Rebecca Cooke?

Rebecca Cooke is the Democratic congressional candidate challenging Republican incumbent Representative Derrick Van Orden in a Wisconsin House race. She campaigned with Senator Bernie Sanders at a get-out-the-vote rally and canvass in Eau Claire on October 25.

Who is Derrick Van Orden?

Derrick Van Orden is the Republican incumbent representative whom Cooke is challenging. His office criticized Cooke's decision to campaign with Sanders, describing the senator as a "millionaire socialist" and accusing Cooke of misrepresenting her working-class background — claims reported as Van Orden's office's characterization, with no supporting evidence included in the statement provided.

What did Sanders say in Eau Claire?

Sanders called the election exceptionally consequential, saying: "In my view this is the most important midterm election in the modern history in our country and maybe even the history of our country." He urged supporters to vote in the November 3 midterm election.

What issues did the Eau Claire event focus on?

According to the event organizers, Sanders and Cooke discussed affordability, government accountability, and rural hospitals.

Why does this House race matter nationally?

The House is currently held by Republicans by a narrow margin. Democrats need to flip a net number of Republican-held seats to win a majority, so each challenger race — including Cooke's — contributes to that national arithmetic.

When is Election Day?

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The Eau Claire event took place nine days beforehand, on October 25.

Sources

The Madison Focal: "Sanders campaigns with Cooke in Eau Claire as Wisconsin House race enters final stretch" (October 26, 2026) — event details, Sanders quotation, Cooke's pitch, Van Orden's office response.

DaveManuel Midterm Polls and Prediction Markets Tracker (updated October 26, 2026, 12:30 a.m. PT) — Wisconsin governor's race polling average and market prices.

NorthJersey summary of recent midterm polling — generic ballot and voter-motivation figures.