The Capitol Report, produced by WisPolitics.com — a nonpartisan, Madison-based news service that specializes in coverage of government and politics — provides a weekly analysis of issues being debated in Wisconsin state government. It is underwritten by the WNA and produced exclusively for its members. WisPolitics.com President Jeff Mayers is a former editor and reporter for the Associated Press and a former political writer for the Wisconsin State Journal.
By WisPolitics-State Affairs
Derrick Van Orden, the second-term GOP congressman from western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, could use all the help he can get heading into this fall.
The Trump administration is doing what it can to pitch in, though insiders wonder if that’s a double-edged sword.
In rapid succession, Van Orden gets a visit from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to connect with MAHA voters. He gets invited to the Oval Office for the president’s announcement of new investments in “clean coal” technology that will benefit a power plant in Wisconsin.
And he gets Donald Trump in Chippewa Falls on June 5 to tout what the administration sees as wins for farmers.
Trump said his administration’s policies have helped farmers, while vowing the United States will be out of Iran soon and bring down prices.
“We’re going to come out, and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down just like they were four months ago. Your fertilizer’s down, your energy’s down, your oil, your gas is all coming way down. And frankly, I thought it would go much higher than it did,” Trump said during his first visit to Wisconsin of his second term.
While the appearance was billed as a roundtable with farmers, Trump spoke for the majority of the event.
Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, 7th Congressional District Congressional Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, were all at the roundtable. Trump has endorsed Tiffany for governor and Van Orden’s reelection bid.
He praised Tiffany as “one of the best congressmen in our country” and called Van Orden “a real fighter.”
The president also hit on various non-agriculture topics during his remarks, including criticizing former President Joe Biden, blasting “rigged” elections, cracking down on crime in Washington, D.C. and spending several minutes touting the repainting of a reflecting pool at the Washington Monument and efforts to revamp fountains in the city.
Olympic gold medalist speed skater Jordan Stolz was also present and put his medal around Trump’s neck, which the president wore during a portion of the event.
After Trump spoke, other attendees provided short remarks, with Trump prefacing that by noting the long list of those who were to talk and quipping that they should speak quickly.
“I gotta get back to a place called Washington and protect you,” he said, adding, “we don’t need your life story.”
Tiffany and Van Orden both spoke briefly ahead of the event.
“If anybody, anybody you hear says that Donald Trump and this administration doesn’t care about the farmers, you can look ‘em straight in the eye and tell ‘em that’s a pile of manure, cause the man is right back there,” Van Orden said.
Kennedy earlier joined Van Orden for a roundtable at a dairy farm in Elk Mound. Van Orden has also hosted several other Trump administration officials in the district this year, including Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who accompanied Trump as well.
Trump’s net approval rating in the March Marquette Law School Poll hit an all-time low among Wisconsin voters. Forty-two percent of registered voters approved of the job Trump was doing, while 56% disapproved for a net rating of minus 14.
On a call ahead of the visit, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, said Trump’s policies have made farmers’ lives harder, citing tariffs and high fuel and fertilizer costs amid the war in Iran, and that Tiffany and Van Orden have stood behind him.
She said Trump administration officials visiting Wisconsin, particularly the 3rd CD, shows “they understand on some level how hard their policies and their choices are hitting our farmers in Wisconsin.”
“The parade of Trump officials who are coming through Wisconsin and the president’s glitzy rally today are not going to do the job in convincing our farmers that they are doing better than they know they’re doing. They know the reality. They’re balancing their budgets, or trying to, every single day,” Baldwin said.
Also on the call, Menomonie kidney bean farmer Cindy Brown said exports are a major part of her business and tariffs have hit them hard. She said Chippewa Valley Bean can’t ship to customers in Dubai amid a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz and that freight costs have increased.
“There’s no clear end in sight right now and the longer this goes on, the more money farmers lose and the darker the outlook becomes,” Brown said.
Insiders watching the Van Orden race say the visits can cut both ways.
Kennedy seems to have a unique attraction with that Make America Healthy Again crowd that spills beyond the MAGA audience, but Trump is the engine that drives GOP politics these days – for better and for worse. He boosts the diehard base. But insiders say he’s failing with moderate voters and is jet fuel for Dem turnout.
With the GOP base remade in Trump’s image, Van Orden needs the president’s supporters ready to turn out this fall, especially after he underperformed Trump in 2024. Dems are going to seek to hang Trump around Van Orden’s neck — particularly on issues they think will resonate with rural voters in the district.
Dem Rebecca Cooke, who is heavily favored to get through the August Dem primary to take on Van Orden, released a polling memo showing her at 50% among likely general election voters to the 46% who supported Van Orden.
By comparison, the campaign’s polling in February had it 49-48 for Cooke.
Insiders have long noted that Van Orden’s bombastic approach hurts him with moderate voters who could make his life easier in the GOP-leaning district. But with the chances of a personality makeover unlikely at this point, there’s still the path of tearing down Cooke.
And Republicans have teed up a campaign to paint her as an out-of-touch political operative who looks down on the district’s voters as racists rather than being the waitress-raised-on-a-farm image she’s tried to portray in the campaign.
For more, visit WisPolitics.com
The Capitol Report is written by editorial staff at WisPolitics.com, a nonpartisan, Madison-based news service that specializes in coverage of government and politics, and is distributed for publication by members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.
Copyright © WisPolitics.com
