Rebecca Cooke, the likely Democratic nominee in Wisconsin's closely watched Third Congressional District, told donors at a June fundraiser that out-of-state college students, particularly those "from Minnesota", represent a critical voter pool her party should mobilize, and she described Wisconsin Democratic Party efforts to re-register those students in the state. An audio recording of the remarks, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, captures Cooke speaking at a June 9 event organized by J Street.
The remarks land in a toss-up race where the incumbent, Republican Derrick Van Orden, carried the district by seven points alongside President Donald Trump in 2024. They also arrive as Wisconsin Republicans have made "Don't Minnesota our Wisconsin" a defining campaign slogan, and as questions about voter-registration practices by Democratic-aligned groups draw scrutiny across multiple states.
Cooke's campaign did not respond to the Free Beacon's request for comment.
The Free Beacon published a direct quote from the audio. Cooke told J Street donors:
"I think one thing that we're really interested in doing, we've seen the state party in the past put a lot of resources into those four-year universities, and they put a lot of resources into Wisconsin as a same-day voter registration state. And so, it's like, okay, people are from Minnesota, let's re-register them, like, that's great."
She identified college students as "a huge voting bloc" who "are gonna be really important" in choosing the district's next representative. The Third Congressional District contains six University of Wisconsin campuses: UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Crosse, UW-Stout, UW-Platteville, UW-River Falls, and UW-Stevens Point.
The district also shares a border with Minnesota, which explains the pipeline of students Cooke described.
Wisconsin allows same-day voter registration, meaning a person can show up on Election Day, register, and cast a ballot. A voter guide from Common Cause Wisconsin notes that college students who move to the state need only live at their Wisconsin address for 28 days to qualify. They do not need a Wisconsin driver's license or state-issued ID.
At three of the six UW campuses in the district, Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Stout, students can vote using their normal student ID. At the other three, Platteville, River Falls, and Stevens Point, schools provide a compliant student ID upon request.
In practical terms, a freshman from Minneapolis who arrives on a UW-Eau Claire campus in late August can register and vote in a November election with nothing more than a student ID and a dorm address. That is not a loophole Cooke discovered. It is a feature of Wisconsin law that the state Democratic Party has, by Cooke's own account, invested "a lot of resources" in exploiting.
The question is whether voters in a district that backed Trump by seven points want their representative chosen, in part, by transplants from a neighboring blue state who may return home after graduation. Cooke seems to think the answer is yes, and said so to a room full of donors.
Cooke's enthusiasm for importing Minnesota voters collides with a political message Wisconsin Republicans have hammered for two years. Van Orden, the incumbent she hopes to unseat, used the phrase in August 2024 after Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Van Orden said at the time:
"As the congressman representing the Minnesotans who fled to my district seeking relief from [Walz's] leadership, here are four words for the new ticket: Don't Minnesota our Wisconsin!"
Rep. Tom Tiffany, now described as the leading candidate in Wisconsin's GOP gubernatorial primary, has carried the same theme. He told an ABC affiliate in January that the message resonates especially in western Wisconsin, where residents can see Minnesota's governance up close. Tiffany said:
"I mean, regardless of where you stand, what is happening in Minnesota, it's very clear that the state is not well run at this point. We don't want to end up like that, and that's part of the message that I'm going to take to the voters, especially in western Wisconsin."
That Cooke would openly celebrate re-registering Minnesota students, at a fundraiser hosted by a Washington-based advocacy group, no less, hands Republicans a ready-made contrast. The GOP argument writes itself: she wants to bring Minnesota's politics across the border, one student registration at a time.
The situation in Minnesota has drawn its own controversies. Minnesota Democrats recently voted in lockstep to block an impeachment investigation into Governor Walz as fraud losses in the state reportedly hit $19 billion, a record that hardly serves as a recruiting pitch for cross-border governance.
Cooke has billed herself as a moderate. This is her third attempt at flipping the Third District, after a failed 2024 bid. The Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up, and the few general election polls available, all conducted by Democratic pollsters, the Free Beacon noted, give Cooke a small lead over Van Orden.
But the moderate branding has taken hits before. The Free Beacon previously reported that Cooke said in September she would support Zohran Mamdani's mayoral campaign in New York City if she lived there. Mamdani ran as a self-described socialist. Backing a New York socialist while running in rural western Wisconsin is a curious form of centrism.
Cooke also served on the steering committee of Opportunity Wisconsin, a group that describes itself as a coalition fighting for working Wisconsinites. The Free Beacon has reported that Opportunity Wisconsin is an alias used by the North Fund, a dark money group backed by George Soros and managed by Arabella Advisors. The pattern is familiar: federal investigators have probed money flowing through leftist nonprofits in other contexts, and the web of dark money behind progressive candidates continues to expand.
None of this disqualifies Cooke from running. But it complicates the story she tells voters about who she is and whose interests she serves.
Cooke's recorded remarks arrive at a moment when voter-registration practices by Democratic-aligned organizations face growing scrutiny nationwide. The FBI recently raided the headquarters of an Ohio voter group in a reported fraud investigation tied to a Soros-backed network, a case that underscores how seriously federal authorities are taking irregularities in the registration pipeline.
In Los Angeles, thousands of homeless voters were registered at shelters without beds, raising questions about whether registrations reflected real residents or manufactured rolls. These are not identical situations, but they share a common thread: organized efforts to pad voter rolls in ways that stretch the spirit of election law, even when the letter is technically observed.
Wisconsin's 28-day residency window and same-day registration make the state especially vulnerable to this kind of organized mobilization. When a candidate openly describes it as a strategy, on tape, to donors, voters deserve to know.
Wisconsin's primary is scheduled for August 11. Cooke is widely expected to secure the Democratic nomination. Van Orden has held the seat since 2023 and will run on a district that voted for Trump by a comfortable margin.
The audio does not capture Cooke proposing anything illegal. Wisconsin law permits what she described. But legality and legitimacy are not the same thing. A candidate who looks at a district full of Wisconsin taxpayers, workers, and families, and sees her best path to victory in students who arrived from another state a few weeks earlier, is telling you exactly whose interests she plans to prioritize.
The voters of Wisconsin's Third District should listen carefully. She already told the donors.
