Former Eau Claire Council President Emily Berge’s Insurgent Campaign for Congress
Hoping to face incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden. But can she win Democratic primary?
Emily Berge, the former president of the Eau Claire city council and a candidate in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, was working the window of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau milkshake stand at the Trempealeau County fair on July 18 when a woman asked her if she knew the Farm Bureau was for Republicans.
To Berge, who had been at an event with the left-leaning Wisconsin Farmers Union the day before, the critique didn’t make sense.
She’s running an underdog campaign against Rebecca Cooke — a former political fundraiser, business owner and waitress who nearly won the seat in 2024 and entered the race with massive advantages in fundraising, name recognition and support from high-profile national Democrats. Left, right or center, she is looking to pick up every vote she can get.
Wisconsin’s 3rd CD is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden and leans Republican at its baseline, according to the Cook Political Report.
Whoever wins the Democratic primary is going to have to pick off some people who have voted for Van Orden, President Donald Trump or both while not losing the support of organic farmers in Viroqua or tattoo artists in La Crosse.
For Berge, that means slinging milkshakes in Galesville, riding the tilt-a-whirl with Democratic state legislators in West Salem, grinding coffee beans with baristas in La Crosse and attending every county fair, dairy breakfast, cranberry festival and parade between Platteville and Eau Claire.
After announcing her candidacy in April last year over the objections of the national Democratic party, Berge and her husband Mike realized by November that their old Subaru Outback wasn’t up for the rigors of a congressional campaign and bought a used Hyundai. In the subsequent eight months, they’ve driven 18,000 miles criss-crossing the district.
Cooke, who previously worked for the centrist group Third Way, has burnished her moderate bonafides by forcefully denouncing left-wing policy proposals such as defunding the police and abolishing ICE while touting endorsements from the centrist congressional Blue Dog Caucus, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, a member of the fiscally moderate New Democrat Coalition running as a centrist for the U.S. Senate. She’s also been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The National Republican Congressional Committee still calls her “Commie Cooke.”
At the end of the most recent reporting period, Cooke had raised $8.3 million since the start of 2025 — outraising Van Orden — and still has $2.4 million in cash on hand. Back in 2022, Cooke fought her way to a surprise second-place finish in the Democratic primary for the seat. The winner of the primary, state Sen. Brad Pfaff, lost to Van Orden by 3.7 points. In 2024, Cooke won the primary and then lost to Van Orden by 2.7 points, although she outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin in the district on the same Democratic ticket.
This year her name recognition and support from national Democrats, including an early endorsement from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, vaulted her to the front of the 2026 race.
This spring, her campaign touted internal polling that put her more than 40 points ahead of Berge.
But with three weeks before the Aug. 11 primary, political observers, voters and the Berge campaign feel like the gap is closing.
Grassroots candidate vs. ‘the Establishment’
An oversimplification of the race would be to describe it as a contest between Berge the progressive and Cooke the moderate. That characterization is somewhat true: On healthcare for example, Berge supports Medicare for All while Cooke has called for more incremental policy changes.
One of the biggest spats of the primary campaign has centered around LGBTQ issues, with Cooke repeatedly fumbling and recanting when asked in several forums if she would vote for a federal ban on conversion therapy.
Cooke’s back and forth drew criticism from Van Orden for “flip-flopping”
During a May forum in La Crosse, Cooke said the question of conversion therapy should be left to local decision makers. At a June forum in Platteville she said she wouldn’t vote for a conversion therapy ban only to release a statement soon after saying she misunderstood the question and she would vote for a ban. At the final forum of the campaign last week in Eau Claire, Cooke said she does “not support conversion therapy whatsoever” but did not say how she’d vote on a ban.
Berge, a trained mental health counselor, has been unequivocal in her support of a federal ban on conversion therapy at each forum and noted that she led Eau Claire’s efforts to pass a local ban on the practice.
More than any particular policy difference, in an election cycle in which the brand of the Democratic party establishment has become toxic, the race has become a swing-seat contest between a candidate who appears determined to shake every hand in western and central Wisconsin against a consultant-backed candidate with poll-tested talking points.
Recently filed campaign finance reports show that Cooke’s campaign has spent almost $500,000 on political consultant fees since January of this year. Across her entire campaign, Berge has spent $578,000.
“It’s kind of that classic tension between the national party and local activists,” Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at UW-La Crosse, said. “I think that we have seen some ideological differences between the two, but also I think maybe like a bit of a broader conversation here about the value of a competitive primary and the extent to which national political figures should be intervening in these nomination contests.”
Berge, drawing on her experience serving as the president of the Eau Claire common council, is convinced that voters in this cycle are less focused on the exact policy particulars and more interested in someone who comes across as authentic and promises to act with the best interests of the people at heart.
“It’s not necessarily what, but it’s how. It’s how you show up,” Berge told the Wisconsin Examiner. “That’s what I learned on council. That’s why I ran for council. You know, it’s how you show up, how you lead. It’s about being a bridge between your constituents, city hall or D.C. I think that’s what people want.”
It’s kind of that classic tension between the national party and local activists
– UW-La Crosse Professor Anthony Chergosky
Without the cash to pay for its own polling, the Berge campaign is instead looking for other clues that she has the late momentum. On rural roads and residential streets in the district, Berge’s red, white and blue signs far outnumber Cooke’s green ones. The campaign chose to go without an office to save the rent money, but it does have 600 volunteers making calls, writing postcards and helping manage the campaign Reddit account.
“We just always get different new people joining us,” Berge said. “I mean, I kind of have my core group of volunteers who have been with me since day one, but we’re like a snowball going down the mountain, you know, and we’re just collecting more and more people, and so we can just keep going and growing and growing.”
The Berge campaign also believes that over multiple campaign cycles, voters’ views on Cooke have solidified — and not necessarily in a positive way. Near constant Republican messaging accusing her of being far left-wing, support from the DCCC in a cycle when voters are incensed with national Democrats, questions swirling around her background of political work — made worse by her recent request to delay the filing of her personal financial disclosures until after the primary — and bad blood from previous campaigns have soured people on Cooke, Berge campaign staff say.
Additionally, Berge’s suppor