Small-business struggles shape Wisconsin’s competitive House race

Cooke targets health care costs as Van Orden defends Trump’s record

Campaigning in Wisconsin’s third congressional district entered its final days and hours before the Nov. 3 midterm election with Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden facing Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke in her third bid for the seat. The Guardian said the contest was always expected to be competitive, and affordability has become a central issue: Erin Klaus described sales trending downward for two years at her Eau Claire business, while Amy Burke Lepper said monthly health insurance for her and her husband rose from more than $1,000 to nearly $3,000, leaving her without coverage.

The Guardian described Cooke’s third campaign as drawing on economic despair among working people, farmers and business owners, while Van Orden has defended the Trump administration’s record and his own support for Trump.

Klaus to close as Lepper reports rising insurance costs

After 18 years in business, Klaus will close Tangled Up in Hue, her handmade artisan market in downtown Eau Claire, at the end of 2026. She opened it during a recession when downtown was “kind of a ghost town,” then weathered construction and the pandemic. Sales have trended downward for two years, and she said she was dipping into her own pocket while working as executive director of the business nonprofit Downtown Eau Claire Inc. to pay staff.

“This is the first time it’s out of my control to save my business,” Klaus said. “It just feels so desperate right now for a lot of our small business owners … From the tariff wars to inflation to cost of living to healthcare, I mean, honestly, there’s no money left in the bucket at the end of the day for regular folks and, unfortunately, that means our regular folks who run businesses, too, are just not able to kind of hang on any longer.”

During the pandemic, Klaus described a consumer shift toward quick online options. Tariffs on T-shirts forced her to absorb the added cost, she said, while Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies had not been extended and a downtown paid-parking program felt like the final straw. She said communities like Eau Claire were losing small businesses as people became financially pinched and lacked extra money to spend, even if they wanted to, and that she knew she was not alone among small-business owners.

Messages from the Trump administration seemed to insist that the economic conditions were not happening or were not affecting people to the degree they were, Klaus said. The hardship felt “almost like we’re getting mocked for the hardships that we’re enduring.”

The Guardian reported that other small-business owners in the district were struggling, too, and cited Amy Burke Lepper, owner of One Of A Kind Interior Design in Chippewa Falls. Lepper had worked with a cabinet maker in Canada for more than two decades, but tariffs now applied to the cabinets. A couple of her clients have put off building homes because of costs, and she described her retail shop, Lagom, as “remarkably slow.”

Lepper said she had gone without health insurance for the first time in her life because the monthly cost for her and her husband rose from more than $1,000 to nearly $3,000. She did not plan to close her business, but said she wanted to speak out so people would understand how federal policies were affecting small businesses like hers and why prices were higher. “I’m one person, and I know this is affecting everybody else and waking people up to the fact that, you don’t understand that’s why your prices are higher. It’s because of these things. It’s not a magic thing,” Burke Lepper said.

Whatever happens in the election, it will be too late for Klaus to avert the closure. Tangled Up in Hue will stay open until the end of the year to sell down its products and let the many dozens of artists who sell there earn money during the holiday season. Klaus will keep the Saturday art market, a wholesale operation and apparel printing. A maker since she was a child, she plans to find new ways to continue that work.

Candidates focus on health care, prices and economic policy

Cooke grew up on a dairy farm and said her family had to sell its cows because of low milk prices and competition from larger dairies. She ran a small business in Eau Claire and still works as a waitress. Aligned with the centrist Blue Dog Democrats, she accepted independent Sen. Bernie Sanders’s endorsement and campaigned on economic populist ideas.

Cooke said the first thing Democrats should do was extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that were allowed to expire, for three more years, to “stop the hemorrhaging.” She also wants a public option for health care and an expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing. At the restaurant where she works, fewer people are going out to eat because they lack spending money, and she had to drop her own insurance after Covid-era subsidies expired. Van Orden was one of few Republicans to vote to extend them. “It just sort of feels like nobody really cares,” Cooke said. “And I think I can talk about those things because I get it. I am in the trenches with everybody else.”

Cooke said the Iran war has “just got to end,” which she said would help bring down prices. She said the federal government needs to enforce antitrust laws and take on “corporate conglomerates” that dominate certain industries and break them up. Companies that use AI to surveil customers and set different prices based on that data need to be stopped, she said.

Cooke said she had done work throughout the district to make her case to voters and would keep showing up in person if elected. She had attended small-town dairy breakfasts, lutefisk lunches and county fairs and had knocked on doors. On 31 October 2026, she stopped at the Eau Claire Farmers Market during a campaign event. She lost by seven points in 2022 and by less than three points in 2024. “Even if it’s a big blue wave, it will be a ripple here,” she said.

Van Orden’s Trump support and conduct draw attention

The Guardian reported that Van Orden, a retired Navy Seal, has been an ardent Trump supporter and attended the January 6 rally at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Trump administration officials traveled to the third district multiple times to defend their records, and Trump told supporters to pretend he was on the ballot this year. Van Orden said he had not shied away from his support for Trump.

Van Orden defended the Iran war as necessary, though he acknowledged that it was making it “exponentially harder for Republicans to hold the House and the Senate.” On 29 October 2026, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned for Van Orden in Platteville, Wisconsin, and rallied with him that week, calling him “one of our fighters.”

“At some point, we have to look at accomplishments and put aside the emotional sway,” Van Orden told WISN 12 News. “Donald Trump won this district three times in a row, with increasing margins every single time. The things that he’s been able to accomplish with a Republican-controlled congress is absolutely amazing.”

The Guardian reported that Van Orden refers to Cooke as “The Crooked One,” claims she is not who she says she is and has posted AI-generated videos of her. After Cooke rallied with independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has endorsed her, Van Orden called them “cocktail communists.”

The same outlet reported that Van Orden’s outbursts, both in person and online, had drawn attention: he threatened a teenage library worker over a pride month display in 2021, screamed at Senate pages at the U.S. Capitol in 2023 and shouted “lies” at Joe Biden during the 2024 state of the union. The outlet also reported that Van Orden used Cooke’s work as a political consultant to attack her working-class credentials. Van Orden did not respond to requests for an interview or comment.

District history and affordability frame the competitive race

Before Van Orden’s victory in 2022, Democrat Ron Kind represented the district for more than 20 years. The mostly rural and suburban district backed Barack Obama twice and Donald Trump three times, though voters also sometimes chose Democrats elsewhere on the ballot. Tens of millions of dollars in outside spending has poured into the race from both sides.

The Guardian reported that, as weeks and months of campaigning gave way to the final days and hours before Tuesday’s US midterm elections, rising prices and affordability were prominent in competitive House races. It said Democrats and independents were finding support in rural areas affected by gas costs, fertilizer increases, tariffs and health care cuts. Tariffs and health-care affordability were among the pressures reported in Wisconsin’s third district.

Klaus is a Democrat and plans to vote for Cooke. She hopes more people in the district will connect how their choices for federal offices are hurting the economy now, but said flipping the seat would not immediately resolve the economic pain. “This is just a long journey ahead and it’s not going to be a quick fix,” Klaus said. “We need to be able to at least get the people in power that are listening to us and ready to do the hard work that comes next. But it’s certainly not going to be over after 3 November.”