Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent and U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal, are “effectively tied” in their hypothetical rematch to represent the Third Congressional District, according to polling from the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI).
After winning by 2,629 votes in 2022, a poll released last week by NPI shows that Gluesenkamp Perez trails by a percentage point in a hypothetical rematch against Ken.
NPI did not include Leslie Lewallen, a Republican Camas city council member also running in the August primary, in the publicly released results.
In the poll, Kent received 46% support compared to Gluesenkamp Perez’s 45%, with 9% of voters undecided. The poll of 649 likely voters, conducted between June 11 and 12, had a margin of error of 3.9%.
Signs continue to point to the race for the Third District being among the most contentious in the country this election cycle. The nonpartisan website “Cook Political Report” ranks the Third District as one of 11 “Democrat Toss-up Districts,” which the site defines as “either party has a good chance of winning.”
According to 538, a nonpartisan polling aggregator, Americans narrowly favor Democrats in a generic congressional election. On Tuesday, their rolling average showed that 45.7% of voters would prefer a Democrat, compared to 45.4% prefer a Republican.
