Cooke held a narrow lead in the Third District Congressional race at the time of this video. She said one of her top priorities is to expand Medicare.
(WKOW) -- Rebecca Cooke has won the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District race against assemblywoman Katrina Shankland and Eric Wilson.
AP called the race at 10:45 p.m. Cooke collected 36,502 votes, Shankland had 31,224 and Wilson had 6,589.
Cooke said Tuesday was a much different feeling than last election cycle when she fell short to Brad Pfaff. She took 2022 as a learning experience. Cooke said this time around, she leaned into who she is as a person.
Cooke grew up on a dairy farm, owns a small business and waitresses three times a week. She said people can relate to those working experiences.
In terms of her policies, Cooke said her top priorities are reproductive freedoms and increasing accessibility and affordability to healthcare.
27 News asked how she plans to do that. Here is what she had to say:
"One of my top priorities is to expand Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing, the very things that deteriorate as folks age and when I'm out talking to people around the district, that's something that they care a lot about," she said. "Then, from a reproductive freedom standpoint, you know, we've got to be on offense. Obviously, Roe v Wade was overturned, and codifying Roe v Wade into federal law is something that I'm going to work to do when I'm elected to Congress."
She said Tuesday's results show just how important showing up is. She said she and her team have gone to every community, small and large and blue and red.
"We have an amazing group of people that have volunteered their energy and their time throughout the third congressional district. So we're seeing really great returns in Eau Claire, but there's other communities where people are really engaged and excited about what we're doing," Cooke said.
Cooke will now challenge Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden.
