In a nationally watched race emblematic of the competition for working-class and rural support, 3rd Congressional District candidates Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Joe Kent led the vote count in primary returns Tuesday. Gluesenkamp Perez received 47% of the votes, to Kent’s 38%.
Camas City Councilmember Leslie Lewallen, another Republican in the race, received 12% of the votes.
Democrat Gluesenkamp Perez was a political unknown until she won a surprise victory in 2022 over Kent, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Her victory was narrow: just 2,629 votes.
Then and now, she has focused on the concerns of working-class and rural people, sometimes breaking with fellow Democrats to do so. Kent has courted support in this Republican-leaning, Southwest Washington district with hard-charging rhetoric in line with themes of a party dominated by the former president.
Kent has repeated false claims that President Joe Biden’s 2020 win over Trump was “stolen.” Veering into other conspiracy theories, Kent has suggested the Secret Service was “in on” the attempted assassination of Trump last month, according to Axios.
A former Green Beret who is devoting himself full time to the campaign, he also opposes U.S. aid to Ukraine, saying it is inflaming tensions around the world.
“We are closer to World War III and a nuclear exchange than any time since the Cuban missile crisis,” he said.
And Kent characterizes the recent surge of migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border as an “invasion,” as Trump and many conservatives do, blaming the Biden administration.
Gluesenkamp Perez, ranked in one analysis as the fifth-most bipartisan Democrat in the House, has also criticized the administration for its handling of the border. In July, she voted with Republicans to rebuke Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for her role in border affairs after Harris was tasked by the president to tackle the root causes of migration.
In another controversial and revealing move, Gluesenkamp Perez, who owns an auto shop with her husband, voted to repeal Biden’s plan to cancel college student debt for millions of Americans because it wasn’t paired with equivalent investments in technical education.
She has stuck with her party on other issues. She’s a staunch defender of abortion access, whereas Kent opposes abortion. Yet, one of the issues most important to her is off the political radar. In May, she co-sponsored legislation that would require manufacturers to make repair information, parts and tools readily available to consumers and small businesses.
Gluesenkamp Perez has had the fundraising advantage that comes with being an incumbent. She pulled in more than $6.7 million through July 17, according to federal filings. A fundraising committee supporting her has raised an additional $268,000.
Kent, in contrast, raised about $1.4 million over the same period through his campaign, while a fundraising committee has added $2.4 million more.
Kent has benefited from a Republican Party more unified than two years ago. In 2022, he ran in the primary against then-U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican who alienated many Trump supporters by voting to impeach the former president for stoking anger that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Fellow conservative Lewallen pointed to Kent’s loss two years ago and argued she would have a better chance of beating Gluesenkamp Perez in November. She struggled to find an audience throughout the primary race.
Kent won an endorsement not only from Trump for the second time — the former president called him “AN ABSOLUTE WINNER” in a social media post — but from the state Republican Party and every county GOP organization in the 3rd District.
