In a primary contest Tuesday, Wisconsin Democrat state Rep. Katrina Shankland was defeated by local business owner Rebecca Cooke, setting up a race to unseat Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden in November.
Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL, narrowly defeated Democrat state Sen. Brad Pfaff to flip the seat for the GOP last year after longtime Democrat incumbent Ron Kind chose not to seek reelection. Pfaff has decided not to challenge Van Orden in 2024.
Prior to Van Orden winning the seat in 2022, Wisconsin’s 3rd District was represented by Kind for more than two decades.
The race for the Democrats eventually turned ugly between candidates Cooke and Shankland. The Wisconsin Examiner reported that in the final days of the race, the election became “more combative as outside super PACs have injected money into the race on behalf of Cooke, while Shankland cries foul and touts her experience as a legislator.”
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“This is a dramatic shift in tone from the 2022 primary, and that could be for a number of reasons,” UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky told the Examiner. “One reason could be, I think, Democrats are no doubt fired up about the prospect of defeating Derrick Van Orden, and that means that the opportunity to be the party standard-bearer is a highly coveted opportunity, and so Shankland and Cook have gone negative.”
