Hegseth boosts battleground Republican during Wisconsin trip

DAYTON, Ohio, and EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boosted a front-line House Republican on Tuesday during a day trip to Midwest battlegrounds two weeks before the midterm elections, in which Republicans are facing an uphill fight to keep control of Congress.

Hegseth, who completed his second visit to Wisconsin this year, talked up Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s (R-Wis.) background and military service while speaking to manufacturing workers at Riverside Machine and Engineering in Eau Claire as part of the Pentagon’s “Arsenal of Freedom” tour.

“No more steadfast supporter on Capitol Hill than that man right there, who never forgets where he came from — whether it’s the U.S. Navy, whether it’s the SEALs or whether it’s Wisconsin,” the Defense secretary said. “He’s a guy that just never backs down, and I respect the heck out of what he does and how he does it.”

The second-term lawmaker is locked in a tight reelection bid against Democrat Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. He touted his military background — joining the Navy at 18 and retiring more than two decades later as a SEAL senior chief — before introducing Hegseth.

Van Orden, a staunch President Trump ally, said he and Hegseth became friends a “long time ago” and that the Pentagon chief’s heart is in the “right place.”

“He fought for our country in uniform with the gun in his hand against evil. He didn’t have to do that. He did. He did not have to take this job, where he’s gotten so much stuff that is absolutely inappropriate. But he’s doing it for the right reasons. He’s doing it for you. He’s doing it for your children,” Van Orden said before Hegseth took the stage.

Van Orden extolled the benefits of going into the trades over taking the four-year college route and said the Riverside workers were saving lives.

“I’m the longest-serving enlisted member of the United States military to ever get elected to Congress ever, and there are Americans that are alive because of you. Because of you getting up and going to work and working with your hands,” he said. “There are less widows, there are children with fathers and mothers because of your work.”

Hegseth, during his remarks, touted reforms that have been implemented since he took the helm at the Pentagon and the necessity of expanding the American defense industrial base.

Cooke highlighted that Van Orden voted six times against war powers resolutions to end the U.S. war against Iran and dinged the lawmaker for not holding a “single in-person town hall” with voters in the state.

“But he has time to pal around with one of the officials who promised us that this war would be over months ago. Wisconsinites are fed up with politicians who make promises like ‘no new wars’ and then break them,” the Democrat said in a statement to The Hill late Tuesday. “They deserve a representative who understands what our communities are up against, not who makes us worse off.”

The Wisconsin 3rd Congressional District race is rated as a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report. But Sabato’s Crystal Ball recently changed its rating from “toss-up” to leaning toward the Democrats.

Hegseth’s Midwest trip comes after the Defense secretary traveled to Kentucky and Iowa earlier this year, where he has campaigned for Republican candidates. Some critics argued the appearances violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from partaking in political activities. Other top Trump officials faced similar allegations over their attendance at a rally in Alaska earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Hegseth avoided giving a direct endorsement in the House race and did not attack Cooke. His address to workers followed a less political script than his August Iowa trip, which drew particular scrutiny from Democrats.

While campaigning for Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), Hegseth slammed previous Democratic administrations and lauded the Iowa Republican’s work on Capitol Hill. Pentagon officials said Hegseth attended the fundraiser in a “personal capacity,” but the Steady State, a group of former national security officials, filed an ethics complaint against the Pentagon head.

Hegseth also hit the campaign trail three months prior in Kentucky, where he supported former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. Gallrein ended up defeating Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) in the Republican primary. Massie introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth last month.

Before touching down in Wisconsin, Hegseth flew to Dayton, Ohio, where he toured the Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Aviation Innovation and Technology Center, which is converting Korean Air 747-8 jets into E-4C Survivable Airborne Operations Centers, the new generation of “doomsday” planes.

Hegseth praised SNC’s work on the aircraft, which will replace the older E-4B National Airborne Operations Center jets.

“We can talk about wanting to have industry, or wanting to scale, or wanting to open architecture, or wanting the next generation,” Hegseth said during his speech in Dayton. “But what exists in this nation is not gifted. It was forged. It was forged by labor, by expertise, and by the sheer willpower of each of you standing here today and joining us online.”

The Defense secretary again advocated for Trump’s record $1.5 trillion defense budget request to help the U.S. retain the “most powerful military” in the world and argued that those investments would directly translate to high-paying jobs for U.S. manufacturers.

Once more, Hegseth vowed that the Pentagon will pass a clean audit by the end of Trump’s second term and highlighted the Defense Department’s openness to newer defense firms looking to compete with prime contractors.

“We are providing, as I said, larger, longer, more predictable contracts to companies so that they can deliver at scale and at pace,” he said. “That means more jobs, more reliable, high-paying jobs as companies invest in their people.”