Wisconsin Dem Candidate’s ‘Coming Together Tour’ Has One Exception: MAGA Voters

Wisconsin Democrat congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke’s post-primary effort to present herself as a candidate willing to engage voters across the political spectrum is facing scrutiny after a Trump supporter was denied entry to an event her campaign had promoted as open to the public.

On primary night, Cooke declared, “If I see someone with a MAGA hat on, I’m shaking their hand.” Days later, her campaign launched a two-day “Coming Together Tour,” advertising the events as “free and open to the public” and saying, “all are welcome.”

But last week, a Stevens Point resident who attended Cooke’s “Coming Together Tour” wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and an American flag around her shoulders was denied entry at the door after seeing Cooke’s comments about welcoming MAGA voters.

The incident is not the first controversy involving Cooke’s portrayal of Republican support. In 2024, Cooke posted a photograph of two Van Orden supporters and presented them as “Republicans for Cooke.” The people pictured later publicly objected to the characterization, saying, “We don’t appreciate being used in this way. We did not authorize her to use our picture. We’re voting for Derrick Van Orden.”

Cooke previously called her hometown of Eau Claire “racist,” noting that “MAGA flags wave high” in the area. She has also repeatedly used “MAGA” as an attack against Van Orden and worked as a political consultant for Kirk Bangstad, who later drew backlash after celebrating the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.

RNC spokesman Hunter Lovell told Breitbart News exclusively, “Rebecca Cooke can’t hide from her roots as a far-left Democrat political operative who proudly supports Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani’s socialist agenda. Rural Wisconsin voters can see straight through Cooke’s election-year charade.”

Cooke’s latest appeal to voters outside the Democrat base comes as she again campaigns against Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District after losing to him by 2.7 points in 2024. She has previously argued that her profile is suited to connecting with “swing, moderate and independent voters.”

Breitbart News reported in May that Cooke has portrayed herself as a political outsider despite spending years working as a professional Democrat fundraiser and consultant. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that she served as finance director for congressional races beginning in 2012 and later founded Cooke Strategy, which described itself as a “Democratic political and fundraising consulting firm.” Cooke and her firm were paid more than $190,000 by campaigns and committees, while financial records reviewed by Breitbart News also showed that between 2021 and 2023, Cooke received $56,830.37 in compensation from her Red Letter Grant nonprofit while the organization awarded $54,000 to businesses. Cooke also served on the steering committee of Opportunity Wisconsin in 2021 and 2022, which the Washington Free Beacon reported was an alias used by the North Fund, a dark-money organization backed by George Soros’s Open Society Policy Center and managed by Arabella Advisors.

In June, Breitbart News reported that Cooke touted an endorsement from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) as the union opposed aspects of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal alien commercial truck drivers and rules requiring proof of citizenship for certain industrial jobs, including commercial truck driving. The administration’s trucking enforcement included Operation Checkmate, during which Border Patrol arrested 36 illegal aliens driving commercial trucks in Arizona. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said states had “potentially illegally issued about 194,000” commercial driver’s licenses to foreign migrant truckers who would not meet DOT English-language standards, and later said more than 20,000 non-English-proficient drivers had been taken out of service and more than 28,000 illegally issued foreign CDLs revoked during the first year of Trump’s trucking reforms.