Wisconsin House race heats up amid calls for top Dem challenger to be disqualified over China ties

Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District represents a rural area running from the Minnesota and Iowa borders to Eau Claire and a strip that ends between Wausau and Appleton. But a large topic of debate in the rematch race between incumbent Derrick Van Orden and Rebecca Cooke is about a country a world away – China.

The race is expected to be close, with Cooke’s team claiming its internal polling showed a 1% point lead over Van Orden in polling by Impact Research from Feb. 12-17 with questions asked of 500 likely general election voters.

Cooke recently touted an endorsement from the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Plan, a group whose ties to China include a Beijing office and employees who came to NRDC from the Chinese government. The group supports a fracking ban, opposes the Line 5 pipeline that stretches across Wisconsin, and it supports the Green New Deal.

“It’s not just concerning, it’s completely disqualifying,” Van Orden spokesperson Grace Kim told The Center Square. “Rebecca Cooke is in lockstep with radical left-wing groups like the NRDC, the same extremists pushing fracking bans, killing American energy, blocking pipelines like Line 5, and shoving Joe Biden’s reckless Green New Deal down our throats.

“If she gets her way, costs will soar, family farms will collapse, and the U.S. will hand more power to adversaries like China. She claims her family lost their farm to competition, but now she’s willingly siding with radicals who would make it impossible for any small farm to survive. Cooke would sell out Wisconsin families, even her own, just to pander to Washington Democrats.”

Cooke’s campaign, however, has a different viewpoint. It didn’t directly respond to questions from The Center Square about NRDC’s Chinese ties, but said Cooke has clearly stated she is against foreign nationals, including Chinese, from owning Wisconsin farmland.

“It’s not just a food security issue but a national security issue,” Cooke said at a recent event.

She also is against hyper-consolidation in the agricultural industry and beyond, saying there is no place for monopolies in America.

“Cooke can’t claim that she's against Chinese-owned farmland, while getting in bed with groups tied to China whose policies enrich China and crush American farmers,” Kim said. “So either she didn’t bother to research who she’s getting in bed with, or she’s willing to sell out Wisconsin farmers to advance a far-left, China-benefiting agenda. Neither is acceptable and shows that she is completely unfit to represent our state.”

Cooke’s campaign then pointed to Van Orden, who accepted a $5,000 donation from Syngenta, an agricultural technology company with Swiss roots that is now Chinese-owned. Van Orden refunded the donation in March and has since told his fundraising team not to accept donations from any Chinese state-owned companies.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers recently vetoed a Wisconsin bill that would have banned allowing Chinese nationals from purchasing Wisconsin land.

In terms of fracking, Cooke’s campaign said that the federal government does not regulate frac sand projects, so her NRDC endorsement doesn’t relate to the group’s anti-fracking stance. 

But the state is one of the country’s largest producers of frac sand, which is used for hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from rock formations in other states, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, which oversees the mining.

“Unlike Derrick Van Orden, who voted to raise electricity costs, Rebecca supports efforts at the federal level to lower energy costs while protecting Wisconsin's natural resources and environment,” the Cooke campaign said.