VANCOUVER, Wash. — After two years spent representing Washington's 3rd Congressional District, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is expected to again face Republican Joe Kent in a November general election. The two quickly emerged as front-runners in the state's primary election Tuesday night, with the Associated Press calling the race for both of them.
As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Gluesenkamp Perez had received 47% of the vote and Kent 38%. They were trailed by Republican Leslie Lewallen with 12% and Independent John Saulie-Rohman with 2%.
If Tuesday's results hold as expected, the freshman Congresswoman and her Trump-backed opponent will reprise their 2022 matchup. But for both of them, it will be a race where they can draw on more experience and a higher profile, after their last contest established Washington's 3rd District as one to watch.
Awaiting election results on Tuesday, Gluesenkamp Perez told KGW that she has been an advocate for southwest Washington's "independent values," which she said are a rare breed in Washington, D.C. Instead of trying to represent one party or the other, she said, she's tried to reflect the values of her community.
"People are just really tired of how weird politics has gotten," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "They’re really tired of the extremism and just this chatter that never reflects the things that are hitting us. It feels like we are just in the background sometimes, and that’s wrong — so it has been fun to fight to right the ship."
Joe Kent was set to speak to supporters following first results Tuesday evening, and later spoke to KGW after learning that he'd claimed the lead over Lewallen.
"We are going to bring people over to our side because, look, results speak for themselves," he said. "Are you better off now than you were two or four years ago? We have had Democrats in charge now for the last almost four years, Perez has been voting in lockstep over the last two years, so we’re really going to have to have frank and open discussions about those and how to fix the country. I wanna bring people who believe in those common sense values back to our side."
Heading into this November, there's much more attention on the 3rd District as a potential toss-up as both parties vie for control of the House. As a congresswoman, Gluesenkamp Perez now has significantly more experience and Democratic party support to draw upon, while Kent has said that his campaign is much stronger than it was when he challenged a well-funded Herrera Beutler.
"My hope is that by staying focused on being useful to my community, I have built a bridge that will make things easier," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "But you do not take anything for granted. You work hard on the task in front of you, and I’m going to continue to work hard on my legislative priorities and the values of my community."
"We have a very unified Republican Party, as you can see from the polls that are coming in this evening," Kent said. "And also, Marie Perez has a voting record. She has been voting in lockstep with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, voting for the open borders, voting for the inflation, voting for everything that is taking place on the world stage as we’re marching towards World War III."
Both candidates had strong words for one another, but in different ways. Gluesenkamp Perez painted Kent as unchanged from who he was in 2022, while Kent accused Gluesenkamp Perez of proving herself a radical in the interim.
"Joe Kent is the same guy he told us he was last time," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "This is a guy who wants to ban all immigration to reestablish a white majority. He wants a national ban on abortion. He doesn’t care about growing the middle class or addressing the cost of living. He cares about being popular online, and he has gotten more off-base from our values, and I know that that does not reflect the values of our community."
"There’s a huge difference between rhetoric and records. Marie Perez will say bipartisan, she will say moderate, and then she will vote with the Democrats every single time, she votes with them on all of the procedural votes," Kent said. "She has voted for all of the major issues that are destroying the country … whether it’s voting to keep Biden's border open, for the $4 trillion in spending that actually adds to inflation, voting to put biological men into our daughters' dressing rooms in schools and voting for more and more foreign war and foreign aid."
For her part, Republican Leslie Lewallen wasted no time in admitting defeat and throwing her support behind Joe Kent, the man her campaign criticized as inconsistent and untrustworthy.
"I got into this race to protect and grow the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. I couldn't sit on the sidelines while the people, values and country I love fall apart," she said in a statement. "I believe in this country and will continue to fight for conservative principles. We are at a pivotal crossroads right now between strength and success and weakness and failure. There is no margin for error and we have to flip this seat. I support Joe Kent in his campaign to defeat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. We need to get this country back on track because Southwest Washington deserves better."