Discussing the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District with Anthony Chergosky of UW-La Crosse

Greetings and welcome to the Reconpopulation Area Podcast.

My name is Dan Schaefer and I'm the founder of the Reconpopulation Area.

Thank you so much for joining us.

In less than a week in Wisconsin, voters will head to the polls for the August partisan primary.

Statewide, voters will decide on a pair of proposed amendments to the state constitution.

If you want to learn more about those, head over to our site and check out the latest from Marquette University professor Phil Rocco.

But that's not the only thing voters will be deciding on next week.

With new state legislative maps, there are more contested primaries in Senate and assembly districts than there have been in more than a decade.

There are also a number of primaries happening in congressional races.

Perhaps the most interesting of those primaries is the one happening in the third congressional district, where Democrats are looking to win back a seat now represented by Republican Derek Van Orden.

The three candidates running are Rebecca Cook, Katrina Shankland, and Eric Wilson.

Cook and Shankland are the top two contenders in this primary, and the race has gotten a little spicy as we get close to primary election day.

Joining us to talk about this race is Anthony Trigosky, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.

Anthony, welcome to the Reconpopulation Area, and thank you for joining us.

Well, thanks, Dan.

I am a big fan of your work.

And as someone who has never been to the Milwaukee airport, following your website has been a very educational experience for me.

Well, someday you'll have to get down there and re-combobulate in person for yourself and get the full experience, you know?

There's nothing like it, literally nothing like it, because that's the only re-combobulation area in the world.

Yeah, I need a lot of recombobulating after going through the TSA checkpoint.

That's a

certainty.

It's a discombobulating process.

And we're living in discombobulating times here in Wisconsin.

And just the political environment for this summer has been pretty wild.

And the third congressional district, as we're talking today, so we're recording this on Wednesday morning.

And I think this afternoon, Kamala Harris will be holding a rally with Tim Walls and Bonavere.

in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

So Eau Claire is part of the Third Congressional District.

You are in the cross, also part of the Third Congressional District.

The primary here is an interesting one.

So why don't we first, before we get into some of the latest, some of the details here, let's just take a big picture, 30,000 foot view of this primary.

So where do things stand now and what's happening here?

Sure, Dan.

So we've got a three-person race, as you mentioned, to take on Derek Van Orden, the Republican incumbent in November.

And the three candidates are Eric Wilson, who has raised the least amount of money out of a three-person field.

He's running as more of the progressive candidate, I would say, in line with like the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party.

And then aside from Wilson, we have Rebecca Cook, who ran in the 2022 Democratic primary.

She finished second to Brad Paff, who became the Democratic standard bearer in this district in 2022.

And then he went on to lose narrowly to Derek Van Orden in the November election.

And then finally, we have Katrina Shanklin, who is a member of the State Assembly, the Stevens Point area.

And if we look at kind of how the race is trending, we know that Rebecca Cook has raised the most money.

Shankland is second, Wilson is third.

Unclear where the race sits other than that because there isn't really going to be any public polling in a House of Representatives primary election.

So that's kind of the lay of the land and

There's a lot of anticipation on the Democratic Party side for this primary election because Democrats are very enthusiastic about the prospect of taking on and potentially defeating Derek Van Orden.

He has made headlines in a number of ways and the race in 2022 was so close.

A lot of Democrats around here in western Wisconsin

think that if Brad Paff had gotten more support from the Democratic Party, then he might have been able to win the election.

And I've talked to Paff's campaign, people involved in his campaign, and they say that if they had another two weeks even of campaigning, they think he might have been able to win.

So for those reasons, Democrats are interested.

intensely interested in this race, but it has been a highly competitive primary this time around among the three candidates, but especially between Shanklin and Cook.

Yeah, I think, you know, just thinking back on the history of this district, too, it was represented by a Democrat for a really long time.

Democrat Ron Kind retired at the end of his term that ended in 2022 and kind of opened the door for

for that district to be flipped.

It was a district that was won by Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

And so I think the logic dictated that once kind were to step down, it would be a pretty

likely flip opportunity for Republicans, and that's just what happened.

But like you mentioned, the financial differences for that race, for the fundraising that went into it, you know, National Democrats didn't really invest in Brad Paff's campaign.

I think that was a real disappointment.

That race was a lot closer than many people expected it to be.

If there was more spending from the national Democrats, would that have made the difference?

Impossible to say, of course.

But certainly stands to reason that a close race could have been even closer and could have even gone in the Democrats favor.

Now, I think there have been a couple of reports in recent weeks suggesting that the House

Democrats, political action committee is lining up to do some real spending in this race.

I think the political report from last week or the week before said it was around $4 million that they were reserving for the winner of this primary in this race.

And so they're going to try and win this one back.

And I think of the eight congressional districts in the state of Wisconsin, this is probably the most likely to be flipped, probably will be the most closely contested.

I think that the first congressional

district is going to be another one the democrats are going to be spending on with with peter barker being a pretty strong name recognition candidate in that one but with the fact that this one has you know a primary with with two

What I would characterize as pretty strong candidates in the race, because I think Shanklin and Cook have both demonstrated some ability to compete in this type of race.

I think Cook did better than many expected in the primary two years ago.

I think she had more than a third of the votes that year.

And then Shanklin, she is someone that

You know, as long time Reconpopulation Era readers know, I preview every race on the ballot in the Wisconsin state legislature.

Republicans have gone after Shanklin and the last couple election cycles, and not only has she won, she has expanded the margin of victory by which she's won by.

you know, when she won in 2022 by a double-digit margin, I kind of had her race, her name circled as a potential congressional candidate, just, you know, the fact that she's out running at the top of the ticket in her district, Cook, again, a strong showing in the 2022 primary.

And both interesting backgrounds, both would make quite an interesting contrast with the more bombastic, far-right Van Orden than the two women running in this race.

So what's your larger impression of the Cook campaign, of the Shanklin campaign, and how these races have been run this far?

Yeah, Dan.

So if we look at the Cook campaign and the Shanklin campaign, I'm not detecting a lot of difference between them.

I'm not seeing a lot of daylight between them on policy and ideology.

And as much as you and I would love to focus on policy, if there's just not a...

difference between the two candidates, then we need to look elsewhere for the distinctions that they might bring to the table.

And you hit on a very important one for Shanklin.

She touts her ability to run in a tough district and win in a tough district.

And that is a pretty direct appeal to the Democratic Party's desire among many Democratic activists to have someone who is electable.

I mean, many people obviously would prize that, would prioritize that as a criteria for a potential candidate to go up against Derek Van Orden.

But Rebecca Cook has presented a different theory of electability because she has made some not-so-subtle references to Shankland as a career politician.

And indeed, Shankland has been in office for several terms in this data assembly.

Cook portrays herself as a political outsider on social media.

She frequently touts the fact that she is waiting tables part-time while running for Congress.

She talks about her family farm in campaign commercials.

So it's very interesting to watch this internal dialogue, this internal conversation within the Democratic Party about what it means to be electable in the context of

this western Wisconsin district, and in the context of what could be an uphill battle taking on Derek Van Orden in the fall.

Now, political prognosticators will disagree about

how much of an uphill battle it will be for Democrats to take on Van Orden is gonna be at least somewhat of an uphill battle.

But you mentioned the super PAC that's supporting House Democrats.

They have talked about putting several million dollars into this campaign and that can make a big difference.

So an uphill battle, but not clear how much of an uphill battle it would be for Democrats to go into Van Orden and different arguments among Shanklin and Cook about why they are the most electable candidate.

Yeah, that electability question is always an interesting one because it doesn't have, you know, a clearly defined answer.

You don't know who's electable until the election, right?

And so I think, you know, that's certainly an interesting piece of this and it's always, you know, within a primary.

It's an interesting argument to make.

I feel like we talked about that so much during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

Who's the most electable versus Trump?

Maybe this is a different scale version of that, with Van Orden being pretty Trumpy himself, trying to stop him as much as kind of advanced.

you know, some kind of agenda, because like you said, these are both Democrats, you know, they're both Western Wisconsin Democrats and align in a lot of ways.

But I think there has been, you know, at least some interesting differences, you know, kind of when it comes down to the endorsements, some of the things like that, you know, one of the groups that has been talked about as a, you know, kind of

I don't know if you would necessarily call it controversial, but in some circles controversial, the blue dog pack that has backed Rebecca Cook in this race.

That has gotten some pushback from some other Shanklin backers, notably Congressman Mark Pokan of the Second Congressional District.

He's been pretty vocal about his criticism of the blue dogs and their involvement in this race.

What's happening here with that particular endorsement?

Yeah, the endorsements are another distinction between these two candidates.

Again, if we're not really looking so much at ideology and policy, we can look at their backgrounds, we can look at their theory of what makes for an electable candidate, and we can also look at endorsements.

And Shanklin has racked up a lot of endorsements from different groups out there that are affiliated with the Democratic Party, but also key elected officials.

Right here in the La Crosse area, there are multiple elected officials.

who have endorsed Shanklin, and you mentioned Mark Pokan, also Gwen Moore, so the two U.S.

House representatives on the Democratic Party side from Wisconsin.

And that only scratches the surface of Shanklin's endorsement.

So it'll be very interesting to see how much power endorsements have in a Democratic primary.

On the other hand, Cook doesn't have the endorsements from elected officials, so much as she has endorsements from various groups.

you mentioned the blue dogs.

And that has been the topic of some conversation, because to some, in the Democratic Party, the word blue dog is a turnoff.

It may represent someone who is more conservative or more moderate than the party might want.

On the other hand,

portrays that as evidence of her electability, saying, hey, I'm kind of a moderate branded candidate who can win swing voters, who can win some of those split ticket voters.

The proof is gonna come on election day, but I think we're seeing interesting dynamics in this campaign when it comes to endorsements and we'll get a sense of how much these endorsements mattered when it's all said and done.

Yeah, I think, you know, if you look at Shanklin in particular, she has got a ton of endorsements from from labor, a lot of union endorsements.

You've got the Wisconsin Education Association Council, you've got IBEW iron workers, you know, AFSC, I mean, like she AFL-CIO, you can go through the list of she has really a lot of labor endorsements.

Cook also has the endorsement of SEIU, the service industry union.

as well.

So some interesting choices there with the endorsements in this race.

I think the union endorsements I think are pretty important because you know that's an organization that's going to show up at the polls that will encourage their people to be there and vote on.

on August 13th.

There's another factor in this race that I think is interesting and interesting based on geography and where and I think you are right at the center of it in La Crosse because you have Katrina Shanklin who has represented Stevens Point for more than a decade in the state legislature and you also have Rebecca Cook who is from Eau Claire and has deep roots there.

That kind of makes La Crosse a bit of a battleground in this race.

So tell me about that dynamic and how these campaigns are trying to reach your neighbors in La Crosse.

Yeah Dan, if we go back to the 2022 primary and we look at the contest between Brad Paff and Rebecca Cook who ended up being the top two finishers that year, they did very well in their respective geographic bases.

Cook did quite well in the northern parts of this district, the Eau Claire area and the surrounding areas.

Meanwhile Brad Paff who represents the state senate district in the La Crosse area, in La Crosse County and the surrounding counties, he did extremely

well in the territory covered by his state senate district.

And that was enough to get him over the finish line, even though as you mentioned, Cook finished a rather impressive second place.

I think she certainly exceeded my expectations and exceeded the expectations of others.

So that leaves open the question, who might do well in the La Crosse area?

And I think all of the candidates realize that La Crosse is potentially a battleground because I think it's widely expected that Cook would do well again in Eau Claire.

It's widely expected that Shanklin would do well in Stevens Point.

Those are the voters they've already cultivated.

Those are the support areas that they've already gained in the past.

So La Crosse becomes that battleground and we have seen the candidates show up here repeatedly.

We've seen

Shanklin make multiple campaign stops.

We've seen Cook make multiple campaign stops.

We've seen the paid media as well.

And I think the paid media is really important in such a large and sprawling district like this one is.

So Shanklin has been on the air for several weeks.

She was the first one to my knowledge on the air on paid broadcast media and Cook

got on the air with her own media buys shortly thereafter.

And we have seen the different brands come into play in the paid media.

We have seen Shanklin talk about her experience as a legislator.

She touts her bipartisanship in the state assembly, while Cook has focused on her family farm and the issue of abortion in her paid media.

So I think paid media could be quite important when we're sorting

out how La Crosse is going to go in this primary election.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

So like when you, you know, you get to watch a YouTube video or something like that, are you getting shank fund and cook ads all the time in and around La Crosse

these days?

Oh, yeah, people are getting inundated with digital advertisements from Shanklin and Cook.

And if you watch the evening news out here in La Crosse or Eau Claire, you may see multiple ads from these candidates.

So Shanklin and Cook do have the resources to be on the air in July into early August.

Wilson, as we noted, has the least amount of financial resources out of the field.

So he is not, to my knowledge, made any paid

broadcast media buys.

He may have some digital buys that I'm not aware of, but Shanklin and Cook are definitely spending their campaign war chests in order to reach the voters here.

And so I think the La Crosse area may.

be swayed by who is most effective at getting their message out.

Is it Shankland who sells the idea that an experienced legislator who has bipartisan credentials is the best fit for this district, is the best fit for Democrats who want to defeat Van Orden?

Or is it Rebecca Cook who talks about her family farm and talks about abortion, which of course is an issue that Democrats feel they can gain an advantage on in this election?

How do you feel like these messages are playing in La Crosse?

Do you think either candidate has an edge in this area?

Because La Crosse is a swing area for this district, but it's a swing area for the state.

And so it's a place where you get, I imagine you are inundated with quite a lot of political messaging in an election year like this one.

How do you feel like these messages are playing in your community?

Oh,

absolutely, Dan.

I mean, we saw it.

targeted messages to this region about like from the Evers campaign, from the Baldwin campaign.

And so if we go back to previous election cycles, Tony Evers won this district and Tammy Baldwin has won this district in the past.

So although the third district has trended red in certain respects, I mean, most obviously Ron kind being the longtime moderate Democrat representing the area and then him

bowing out of office and getting replaced by Van Orden in 2022.

It doesn't mean that the district has shifted that far to the right.

And I think that if we look ahead to November,

I think it's pretty likely that Tammy Baldwin would win this congressional district.

And then the question for these candidates is if they can generate that type of, you know, if Tammy Baldwin or Kamala Harris has that type of down ballot poll for these candidates.

But as you mentioned, lacrosse is likely to be a very important part of this election for a couple of reasons.

First of all,

In lacrosse and in Eau Claire and in the areas in between and in the areas around there are a lot of swing voters a lot of people who aren't that tied to either party.

Maybe a lot of people who voted Obama and voted for Trump and are kind of.

Not sure where they stand politically.

Those famous Obama Trump voters going back there.

Yeah, the the pivot counties, the famed pivot counties that voted for Obama and then voted for Trump.

They are disproportionately in Western Wisconsin, meaning that this that this area, in my view, is not solidly in either camp.

The trend lines are what they are, but I don't see strong evidence that either party can take a lot of comfort in how things are going in Western.

And I think they've got to work very hard both sides.

And so for these candidates, the question is, like, can they win over these swing voters?

But also, the third district has a ton of college students.

It has multiple UW campuses.

It has other campuses.

right here in La Crosse.

Like I am currently on the campus of the University of Wisconsin La Crosse.

If I took a drive 10 minutes from here, I'd be at Viterbal University.

I could go south and be at UW-Platteville, could go north and be at UW-Eau Claire, could go to Shanklin's district and be in UW-Stevens point of these.

I think that's kind of where her district is.

So a lot of UW students and my goodness, did we see how those students have been mobilized in the past?

Most notably in the 2023 state

Supreme Court election, it knocked my socks off, like how students were interested in an odd numbered year, April election.

I never thought I'd see that.

So students can be a political force.

Young people can be a political force in this district.

We just don't know if that's going to happen.

But with the election of protests, we saw what happens when students are mobilized.

Yeah.

And we saw that.

And I think, you know, you're talking about the the swinginess of this district.

I think protests, one by double digits in the third congressional district or maybe close to it.

So certainly liberal candidates can win there.

And I think you're right.

I think there's some probably some Obama, Trump, Baldwin, Johnson.

Evers, you know, type of voters out there that I think there is this real independent streak.

You know, I see it in the fight, you know, as a UW Oshkosh grad, I see a lot of similarities between the Fox Valley and Western Wisconsin in terms of that.

independent streak and how they can back members of both parties and it's not necessarily like this is solidly red or solidly blue.

Any election can produce any kind of result here, which is part of what I think makes it such an interesting race.

But this one has gotten a little spicy, especially between between Cook and Shangplen as we as we get close to the finish line here.

There's some been some stuff over debates.

There's been some stuff over the ads.

I feel like there's under the surface.

There's there's maybe.

kind of some growing amount of bad blood in this primary too.

What's your sense of what's happening?

And what have you felt like has been some of the more interesting, spicier moments in the conversation here around this campaign?

Yeah, I can give you a few examples, Dan.

First of all, Shanglin went negative against Cook, not all out negative, but there was an ad where she

had an image on the screen of Rebecca Cook saying, never held office.

I mean, that is Shanklin going all in on the idea of experience and that voters will respond to her years in office favorably.

And Shanklin's brand is also the legislation that she's been part of.

And she noted that Cook has never.

been involved in like passing a law, at least not as a member of an elected body.

Then there's an outside group that enters the picture and has a negative by against Shanklin saying things to the effect of like Shanklin's going negative.

And that's because she has this questionable record on badger care and all these other things.

And then you have

Shanklin's endorsers come into the picture and say no no no she was actually very strong on Medicaid expansion and Governor Evers spokeswoman comes into the picture and says hey she

worked really hard with the governor to try to get Medicaid expansion to happen.

So there's been this back and forth between Shanklin and Cook, but it spilled out into the Democratic Party more generally.

The elected members of the state legislature and other folks who have supported Shanklin, including folks from the governor's office.

And then as you noted, like Mark Pokan has been a very vocal supporter of Shanklin and has increasingly become critical of Rebecca Cook.

Now those

ads against Shanklin are indeed by an outside group.

It doesn't say like, I'm Rebecca Cook and I approve this message.

It doesn't say that.

But there is a website, a page on Rebecca's Cook's website that points people to some talking points.

And I mean, we know what that means.

Like we know what a webpage like that means.

Like candidates do that all the time.

They say, well, I'm not going to coordinate with a super PAC, but

If a Super PAC was interested in some ideas, here they are.

And I'm being lighthearted about this.

But it's nothing that Cook is doing that's like crazy or weird or unusual.

This type of thing happens all the time nowadays in the era of independent expenditures in the era of Super PACs.

It's very common.

But the issue of money in the campaign has become an issue.

And the

tone of the campaign has become an issue.

And you mentioned debates.

I was part of an effort trying to organize a televised debate between these candidates.

And we tried for six weeks to organize the darn thing.

And we just were not able to do it, which was a big surprise for us and a disappointment because it was no sweat to put this debate together among the Democratic candidates for this district two years ago.

And also Derek Van Orden declined our debate invitation

prior to the 2022 election, and Democrats were very critical of that.

Now, in fairness to the Democrats in the field this time around, they have had a number of forums among the candidates I believe for in the different parts of the district.

At the same time, we did offer them an opportunity to be on multiple TV stations and multiple radio stations, and we weren't able to do that.

For context, I think it is important to note that Shanklin agreed to every

opportunity that we provided.

Shanklin agreed to every possible date and time slot, and it was just a matter of trying to get Wilson and Cook on the same page, trying to get them in a situation where they were interested in debating and we just couldn't make it work.

So that was a real disappointment, but it's indicative of a broader tone of this campaign, which is far more contentious than the Democratic primary was in this district two years ago.

Yeah, I mean, you know, regardless of who wins this primary, they're going to need everybody on board to defeat Van Orden, who I imagine is the Republicans are going to be spending a lot in favor of him in this race as well.

So do you think this type of this bad blood or whatever that has that has grown during this campaign will spill over into the general election?

Do you think that could be a problem?

I think competitive and contentious primaries can have three potential damaging effects.

The first is strained feelings, hard feelings.

The second is draining financial resources for the primary that could have been used in the general.

And the third is how competitive and contentious primaries can result in a race for candidates to take more extreme and more ideological positions.

I haven't seen the third

scenario play out yet.

I have not seen these candidates take more ideological or more quote unquote extreme positions in light of the competition.

So I think Democrats can feel good about that to the extent that you know going more towards the middle might mean more electability.

The financial resources aspect of it is

interesting because, as I noted, Cook and Shanklin do seem to be making major media buys, and they do have different levels of financial resources that they can draw from.

In terms of the strained feelings, I think the jury's still out on that, but typically parties come together, and I think in this case, Democrats will be highly motivated, not necessarily perhaps by who their nominee is, but by the...

who by who their opponent is.

So I don't think the strain feelings are gonna be that much of a problem, but I am watching the financial resources piece because Derek Van Orden had a huge war chest and

we know from last time that Republican groups spent on his behalf in 2022 while Democrats did not really spend on Brad Paff's behalf.

So we might see Republican outside groups enter the picture.

We know that Van Orden is a very good fundraiser, has a lot of money stored away.

So the financial piece to me is what I'm watching.

Yeah, that's

interesting.

I think, you know, in terms of just the raw numbers from

from the fundraising, I think Cook has had an edge over Shankland overall in the fundraising.

But like you said, they're both going to have to spend to make it through this primary and what those resources look like on August 14th for the winner of this primary is going to be interesting.

So as we start to wrap up here, if you look ahead to next week, do you have any predictions for how this race might go?

I think my prediction is that we're going to see some predictable geographic patterns that we've talked about down.

I think Shanklin is going to do very well in the Stevens Point area.

I think Cook is going to do very well in the Eau Claire area.

And that leaves two questions.

Who wins lacrosse?

And where does Eric Wilson poll votes from?

Because if this were a head to head race,

it'd be a different conversation than what we have, which is a three-person race.

Like, could Wilson be kind of a spoiler here?

I mean, maybe we have some scenario where it's, you know, Shankland is in the thirties or forties, Cook is in the thirties or forties, and then Wilson is not in the lead, but is still getting a decent chunk of the vote.

So I don't know who's going to win.

I don't have any

Firm predictions on that but I can tell you a couple things I'm going to be watching the lacrosse area and the role of Eric Wilson in potentially influencing who comes out on top Yeah, it's

gonna be it's gonna be very interesting to watch.

You know, I don't I feel like You know just on on balance it seems like

It could go either way, but like you said, the Wilson factor is interesting because like you said, I don't know who he would be pulling votes from because I don't think either of the candidates in this race are trying to carve out that kind of progressive path to win this race.

You know, Cook with having endured, I think Cook's campaign two years ago may have looked a little bit more like that, but not.

not to the extent where it would be a, you know, Bernie Sanders type of campaign or anything like that.

And the fact that she has the endorsement from Blue Dogs, you know, pulls her overall kind of more towards a moderate type of path.

And, you know, Shanklund has talked repeatedly about bipartisanship in her race.

And so it's not like she's, you know, carving out this ideologue.

path in her race either.

So, um, yeah, that is, that is very interesting to see what happens.

And, uh, on August 13th they

You know, I think this will be, when I'm pulling up the statewide results for a lot of these races, I will of course be looking at the constitutional amendments.

We've looked at that a lot at the recombobulation area in recent weeks, but I think the second thing I'll be looking at are the results of the third congressional district primary to see where La Crosse goes.

As goes La Crosse, so goes the third district congressional primary perhaps here.

I'm stealing that one.

There you go.

There you go.

All right.

Well, Anthony, thank you so much for joining us here at the Recon Population Area.

Lots of great insight on this race.

And I think this district in your area is going to be in focus a little bit over these next three months here.

So we'll have to talk to you again as things go forward.

Thanks, Dad.

I'm looking forward to it.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

Be well.

And thanks to all of you for listening to the Recon Population Area Popcast.

We'll see you next time.