House Hopeful Rebecca Cooke, Billing Herself as a Political Outsider, Served on Shape-Shifting Dark Money Group’s Steering Committee

‘My background is rooted in agriculture, small business and helping women entrepreneurs,’ Cooke says

A Democrat running for Congress in Wisconsin, Rebecca Cooke, prides herself on lacking “a career background in politics.” But the twice-failed candidate served on a key panel for a D.C.-based dark money group disguised as a Badger State grassroots organization.

Cooke—who is running for Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District—in 2021 and 2022 sat on the steering committee for Opportunity Wisconsin, which bills itself as a “coalition of Wisconsin residents fighting for an economy that works for all Wisconsinites, not just the wealthy few.”

But the organization only exists on paper. It’s one of the eight aliases used by the North Fund, a dark money group backed by billionaire George Soros, headquartered over 600 miles away in Washington, D.C., and managed by Arabella Advisors.

Cooke’s ties to the North Fund call her self-description into question. The Democrat has tried to distance herself from politics and D.C., calling the city full of “career politicians and elitists who are out of touch” during her last congressional bid.

“My background is rooted in agriculture, small business and helping women entrepreneurs. I also waitress at night while I run for Congress,” she wrote in a post on X. In March 2024, Cooke told the Wisconsin Examiner she thinks “career politicians make folks a little bit more leery.”

Besides her role with the North Fund, Cooke built a robust career in Democratic consulting and politics before embarking on her congressional campaigns. In 2015, she founded Cooke Strategy, a Wisconsin-based LLC that advised numerous campaigns from 2015 to 2021. She was also the finance director for congressional races in several states, including California, beginning in 2012, the Washington Examiner reported in August.

Cooke did not respond to a request for comment.

Launched in 2018, the North Fund—one of Arabella Advisor’s largest clients—is helmed by a handful of Democratic operatives, including Jim Gerstein, a veteran of the Clinton administration. Arabella Advisors itself is a particularly powerful dark money group that wields control over a multibillion-dollar network of other progressive, dark money funds.

The North Fund became one of the Badger State’s top-spending outside groups in 2022 after it poured $4 million into negative television advertising against Sen. Ron Johnson (R.) under the guise of Opportunity Wisconsin.

The Open Society Policy Center, Soros’s advocacy group, has funneled nearly a million dollars into the North Fund. Tax forms reviewed by the Free Beacon show that the group gave $732,000 to the North Fund in 2021 to “support policy advocacy,” and another $250,000 in 2022.

Cooke recently denied taking payments from Soros.

“How much money did you take from George Soros last year?” MSNBC host Ali Velshi asked Cooke on March 21. “Zero … and, you know, I’m backed by grassroots support,” she replied.

She has, however, benefited from Soros’s cash. Democracy PAC, which the megadonor uses to support Democrats, funneled $4 million into House Majority PAC in 2024. That committee then spent over $3 million against the republican incumbent, Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Soros’s son Jonathan and daughter-in-law Jennifer together also donated $6,600 to her campaign in September.

The North Fund has also received millions in grants from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which the Atlantic has described as the “indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money”—and is also managed by Arabella Advisors. In 2022 alone, the North Fund received more than $5 million in grants from the Sixteen Thirty Fund for “capacity building.” It received more than $1 million the year prior for “civil rights, social action, advocacy.”

Donors to the Sixteen Thirty Fund include nonprofits linked to both Soros and Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. During fiscal year 2022, Berger Action Fund, a nonprofit affiliated with Wyss, gave out $35 million in grants to the Sixteen Thirty Fund.