Rebecca Cooke Was a ‘Sleazy’ Political Operative Before Running for Congress in Wisconsin

Rebecca Cooke, the liberal candidate for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional seat held by former Navy SEAL chief Derrick Van Orden, worked as a paid political operative and fundraiser for Democrats throughout the country but has tried to repackage herself as a waitress and outsider with a broken-door car.

“Today is about you flat out lying to everyone in #WI03 about your background,” Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL chief with 5 combat deployments, wrote on X on August 16, referring to Cooke as “Crook.”

“You claim to be a ‘political outsider’ but have spent an entire 1/3 of your life working in politics and STILL run a political consultant firm,” he wrote. “The $200,000 is not a ‘side hustle.'” (He’s referring to Cooke Strategy LLC.)

Cooke told the liberal Wisconsin Examiner that she was an “outsider,” saying, “You know, I don’t come from a career background in politics.” The story mentions that she works as a waitress for three days a week but leaves out her extensive work as a political operative, which is about as insider as they come.

“Rebecca Cooke is a sleazy political activist only looking out for herself,” National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman Mike Marinella told The New York Post.

Cooke also runs a small non-profit, but, The New York Post reported, Cooke is “being accused of self-interested double-dealing after financial disclosures revealed she worked at one of the small businesses that her nonprofit gave a grant to” – the restaurant where she sometimes waitresses.

In 2022, she lost in a Democrat primary for the same district to state Sen. Brad Pfaff, getting only 31% of the vote. Van Orden then defeated Pfaff.

It’s not the first time that Cooke’s central biographical narrative was questioned. Her Democrat opponent Katrina Shankland, whom she defeated in the Democratic primary on August 13, also accused Cooke of lying about her background “as a political fundraiser.”

Shankland’s website contains a list of what she calls “outright lies” by Cooke.

On July 26, Shankland issued a press release that says Rebecca Cooke was “caught lying about her background as a political fundraiser, backs out of debate, and begs for dark money help against Shankland.”

“Cooke has fashioned herself as ‘just a waitress,’ a ‘small business owner,’ and a ‘nonprofit leader,’ but turns out that she has primarily spent her career as a political fundraiser—raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Shankland wrote.

“Though Cooke is working hard to spin a public persona rooted in traditional Wisconsin values, the Journal Sentinel identifies a decade of her work as a political operative who raised tons of campaign cash for clients across the country,” Shankland noted.

She was referring to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel expose on Cooke’s background, noting that Cooke told a radio show that she hates fundraising – when she worked as a political fundraiser.

The Journal Sentinel found:

• “Beginning in late 2012, Cooke, 36, served as finance director for four congressional races in Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, and California, raising $3.7 million in one of those contests.”
• “In 2015, she registered Cooke Strategy LLC, a Democratic political and fundraising consulting firm. FEC records show the firm advised eight state and federal campaigns between 2015 and 2021.”
• “Overall, she and her firm were paid more than $190,000 for their work by a dozen committees and campaigns.”
• “Along with all that, Cooke served on the steering committee for Opportunity Wisconsin, a liberal nonprofit active in congressional races.”
• “Between 2012 and 2014, FEC records show that Cooke did fundraising work for Democratic candidates Jim Graves of Minnesota, Joe Miklosi of Colorado and Syad Taj of Michigan, all of whom lost or withdrew from their races, and Rep. Raul Ruiz of California. Cooke said on her defunct campaign website that she helped raise $3.7 million for Ruiz.”
• “After forming Cooke Strategy, she worked for five federal candidates, two state candidates and a leadership political action committee. Among those for whom she did were former state Rep. Dana Wachs, a Democrat who was defeated in his gubernatorial bid in 2018; Appeals Court Judge Joanne Kloppenburg, who ran unsuccessfully for the Supreme Court in 2016; and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, who lost his congressional bid in 2016.”

“Rebecca Cooke spent her career as a paid political activist electing radical leftists,” said Marinella, the spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, to the Journal Sentinel.

Cooke also ran a small retail shop that closed after seven years in the Eau Claire area and started the small non-profit.