Republican U.S. Navy Seal, Derrick Van Orden, has won the House seat in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District after defeating Democratic candidate Brad Pfaff, flipping the seat red for the first time in 26 years.
American Military News reports:
U.S. Navy SEAL veteran Derrick Van Orden has flipped a Wisconsin congressional seat to Republicans as that party edges closer to control of the House of Representatives.
The SEAL veteran defeated Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff in a contest for the open seat left behind by retiring Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, who had held the seat since 1997, the Associated Press reported.
Van Orden led Pfaff by 4 points Tuesday afternoon with 96 percent of votes reported, according to results reported by the Associated Press.
The flip of a Democrat-held seat comes as Republicans are hopeful to flip control of the House of Representatives.
The SEAL veteran won a district that has recently trended toward Republicans on the western border of Wisconsin, a state narrowly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Van Orden joined the Navy when he was 18 and served 26 years before retiring as a senior chief in the SEALs, having been deployed into combat five times, according to his website. He was also one of several active-duty SEALs to appear in the 2012 film “Act of Valor.”
Below is a scene from the movie Act of Valor with Van Orden.
