A waitress running for Congress in Wisconsin's third district was on the payroll of two left-leaning organizations with ties to billionaire investor George Soros' Open Society Foundation. Rebecca Cooke has portrayed herself as a working-class outsider, touting her experience as a waitress, small-business owner and nonprofit leader raised on a dairy farm. But a personal financial disclosure released two days after Wisconsin’s Aug. 13 primary shows she received more than $5,000 apiece for work with Third Way and the Pipeline Fund, two left-leaning organizations with financial ties to George Soros’ Open Society network.
The Open Society network awarded $1 million to Third Way’s nonprofit research arm between 2023 and 2024, while the Pipeline Fund received $1.4 million directly from the Open Society Action Fund in 2024. Through the Open Society Foundation, which serves as the umbrella organization for Soros' philanthropy network, Soros has distributed tens of millions of dollars to nonprofits and groups championing left-leaning causes like policing reform, LGBTQ rights and drug decriminalization. Soros has donated more than $32 billion of his personal fortune to the Open Society's Foundation, which has been overseen by his son Alex Soros since 2022.
DEMOCRATIC GROUP LAUNCHES $15M WAR ON DSA AFTER SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINS: 'MORTAL DANGER' The financial disclosure forms only report that the amount of money Cooke received from each organization was above $5,000, but they do not specify the exact amount. The personal financial disclosure form covered Jan. 1, 2025, through July 14, 2026. A spokesperson for Third Way confirmed with Fox News Digital reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Cooke received $30,000 in payment "for a project focused on elevating the voices and concerns of working-class Americans that have too often been missing from the rooms where decisions are made." The Foundation to Promote Open Society, a grant making arm of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations network, donated a $500,000 grant to the Third Way Institute in 2023 and another one in 2024, according to IRS-derived grant records.
Third Way Institute serves as the 501(c) research arm of the Third Way. In 2024, Third Way Institute transferred $21.9 million to Third Way, accounting for roughly 98% of the institute’s total spending that year. The institute said the money was used to support charitable and educational work on economic, national security, energy and social policy issues.
SOROS NETWORK REBUILDS PROGRESSIVE PROSECUTOR PUSH AFTER STRING OF ELECTION LOSSES Fox News Digital reached out to Third Way for comment. Pipeline Fund is a organization that works to train, recruit and support progressive candidates running in state and local election races. It began operating independently in 2024 after spinning off from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a liberal nonprofit network that has received tens of millions of dollars from the Soros-founded Open Society network.
Tax records also show that the Pipeline Fund received $1.4 million directly from the Open Society Action Fund and approximately $2.26 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2024. Scattered across the country, Pipeline Fund has a network of campaign consulting groups, including one in Wisconsin known as Wisconsin Progress. "We can confirm Rebecca Cooke worked as a contractor for The Pipeline Fund in 2025 to help advance our mission of building a reflective democracy where working-class people, women, people of color, and other underrepresented communities are fully supported to run for office and advance the needs of their communities," Pipeline Fund said in an emailed statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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