Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez has been declared the winner in Washington state’s 3rd Congressional District by the Associated Press. That would flip the seat from Republican to Democratic control and make it harder for the Republicans to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Her opponent Joe Kent has not conceded.
“What the media says is irrelevant, it[‘]s another narrative designed to stop voters from ballot curing & to force me to concede - not gonna happen,” Kent wrote on Twitter Saturday. “We’re on the streets ballot curing. The fight goes on while the talking heads talk. Power dry & check your ballot.”
The count from the Washington Secretary of State’s Office Sunday morning had Gluesenkamp Perez with 154,169 votes, for 50.47%, to Kent’s 149,548, for 48.96% of the vote. The difference separating them was 4621 votes.
Kent and his supporters are encouraging all local voters to “cure” their ballots by going to the Secretary of State’s website and double checking if it’s been accepted and, if not, rectifying that.
Kent had managed to primary incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler in August. She was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6 uprising. Trump, in turn, endorsed Kent’s primary challenge.
The district was seen as a Republican-leaning one. Former Republican Rep. Linda Smith was first elected there in 1994 on a write-in campaign. Herrera Beutler was first elected to the seat in 2010.
