Van Orden FactsEvery card below is sourced. Click a citation to check it yourself.

276,175 Wisconsinites are projected to lose health coverage.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services' own analysis of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: 276,175 Wisconsinites will lose coverage under the ACA and Medicaid combined over the next decade. DHS reached this figure independently while confirming it aligns with the Joint Economic Committee's CBO-based estimate.

63,000 Wisconsin adults are at immediate, high risk from the new work requirements alone.

Separate from the broader coverage-loss figure, DHS estimates the bill's new red-tape work-reporting requirement alone puts 63,000 Wisconsin adults at immediate risk — based on the state's own current Medicaid enrollment data.

He denied the bill cut healthcare — after voting for the cuts himself.

Responding to constituents protesting outside a May 7, 2026 event in Sparta:

“There has been no cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. There's not going to be cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.”

He had voted for the bill's Medicaid work-requirement and eligibility changes eleven months earlier.

He voted for a bill that adds $3.4 trillion to the deficit.

Van Orden voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act twice — once on May 22, 2025, and again on final passage July 3, 2025. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's final score of the enacted law puts its cost at $3.4 trillion added to the federal deficit through 2034.

Nationally, the bill he backed costs more than 10 million people their health coverage.

CBO's final score of the enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act: more than 10 million people lose health insurance nationwide over the ten-year budget window.

Most of his 2025 money didn't come from Wisconsin — it came from national leadership PACs.

Of the $4.3M+ Van Orden raised in 2025, the bulk arrived through joint fundraising committees like Grow the Majority and Defend the Majority, which can accept hundreds of thousands of dollars per donor — far above the $3,500 an individual can legally give a candidate.

He told the VA Secretary he hopes to see it cut — from his own committee seat.

At a May 15, 2025 Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing, Van Orden said the VA has “more bureaucrats than healthcare providers” and told VA Secretary Doug Collins:

“When we are going to cut the VA — and I hope you do, sir — this is where you need to make the cut.”

He chairs a veterans' subcommittee while backing cuts to the programs those veterans rely on.

Van Orden chairs the VA Economic Opportunity Subcommittee. He also voted for a budget bill cutting Medicaid and SNAP — programs more than 150,000 of his WI-3 constituents rely on, according to his 2026 opponent.

A veterans' advocacy group is calling him out directly.

VoteVets PAC ran 2026 ads asking why Van Orden — a Navy veteran himself — backs an additional $200 billion in war spending while having supported VA cuts at home.

He mocked Wall Street's reaction to tariffs the same week Wisconsin farmers started reporting losses.

As the Dow fell roughly 4,000 points in five trading days after the tariff announcement, Van Orden posted a tweet mocking traders' surprise. The same week, UW-Extension Outagamie County projected 2025 losses of roughly $200/acre for corn, $175/acre for soybeans, and $227/acre for winter wheat for Wisconsin growers.

Wisconsin soybean farmers went five straight months without a single Chinese buyer.

An unprecedented five consecutive months without purchases from China, the U.S. soybean industry's largest trading partner, during the tariff fight Van Orden has continued to support. Even after a partial trade deal, farmers won't be made whole, per the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

He backs the tariffs. Wisconsin's own farmers union doesn't.

“The farmer is the one that suffers the most.”

— Darin Von Ruden, Wisconsin Farmers Union president and organic dairy farmer, on the tariff war Van Orden continues to support.

He voted to make it harder to register and vote.

Van Orden voted for H.R. 9494, which included the SAVE Act — requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register and in-person ID to vote in federal elections.

He's missed votes at more than double the rate of his peers.

Van Orden has missed 96 of 1,886 roll call votes (5.1%) since January 2023. The median miss rate among currently serving House members is 2.0%.

He cursed at teenage Senate pages during a Capitol tour.

In July 2023, Van Orden told a group of Senate pages lying on the Rotunda floor to photograph the dome — a traditional practice — to “get the f— out of here,” calling them “lazy s—” and “jackasses.” He did not deny the incident. It drew condemnation from Senate leaders in both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Republican Senator Thom Tillis.

He interrupted a classified briefing on Israel with a profane outburst.

Reported as part of a broader, well-documented pattern of conduct incidents during his first year in office.

He co-introduced a bill letting local governments block refugee resettlement — aimed at Eau Claire.

Van Orden and Tom Tiffany introduced legislation giving state and local governments veto power over refugee placement, in direct response to a planned resettlement of 75 vetted refugees in Eau Claire. The city's own manager said opposition to the plan was driven by “fear of people who are different.”

He demanded special vetting reports on refugees who'd already passed 2–3 years of federal screening.

Van Orden sent a letter to the State Department demanding individualized vetting documentation on the Eau Claire refugee cohort, then publicly criticized the agency's “silence” when it missed his deadline — despite refugee resettlement requiring a multi-step federal vetting process that already takes two to three years.

He admits the ag industry can't survive without undocumented labor — and backs the deportations anyway.

At a farm listening session, Van Orden acknowledged that 60–90% of Wisconsin's dairy workforce lacks legal status, and that dairy, hospitality, and construction “will shutter in a moment's notice” if every undocumented worker is deported — while continuing to back the administration's enforcement agenda.

Elon Musk personally cut him a $6,600 check.

Musk is among Van Orden's confirmed top individual donors for the 2026 election cycle.

His top individual donors are concentrated in private equity and out-of-state retirees — not WI-3.

Confirmed max-out donors include the co-CEO of Audax Group (Boston), the founder of Elliott Investment Management (Florida), and the former CEO of Morgan Stanley & Dean Witter (Utah). Few of his largest checks trace back to the district he represents.