Democratic congressional hopeful Marie Perez: We can beat Joe Kent, win WA-03

The cam­paign of Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gres­sion­al hope­ful Marie Glue­senkamp Perez released inter­nal polling today that shows Perez nar­row­ly ahead of ultra MAGA Repub­li­can rival Joe Kent in the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion for Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd, sug­gest­ing that there is a path to vic­to­ry for Perez and the Democ­rats in a dis­trict they haven’t cap­tured since 2008.

Glue­senkamp Perez and Kent emerged as the two final­ists in last mon­th’s Top Two elec­tion, oust­ing incum­bent Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, who was first elect­ed to rep­re­sent the dis­trict in 2010. Her­rera Beut­ler angered the Trump base by vot­ing to impeach Trump fol­low­ing the Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion that Trump incited.

Kent — an ultra MAGA Repub­li­can in the mold of Lau­ren Boe­bert, Matt Gaetz, and Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene — secured and cam­paigned with Trump’s endorsement.

Glue­senkamp Perez, who declared her can­di­da­cy only a few weeks before Fil­ing Week, placed first in the Top Two as a con­se­quence of Repub­li­can vote split­ting. Anoth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date, Brent Hen­nrich, bowed out and endorsed her before the dead­line to file, help­ing uni­fy Democ­rats behind her.

Now, with Her­rera Beut­ler out, Glue­senkamp Perez is the only alter­na­tive on the bal­lot to Kent. Her cam­paign hopes the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty will pri­or­i­tize the race, espe­cial­ly now that she has data indi­cat­ing she has a path to victory.

“In an ini­tial head-to-head bal­lot test, before vot­ers are primed with any addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion, Glue­senkamp Perez leads Kent, 47% to 45%, with eight per­cent of vot­ers unde­cid­ed,” Perez’s cam­paign said in a release.

“These results are incred­i­bly encour­ag­ing and show that peo­ple are tired of extrem­ists hijack­ing Wash­ing­ton. They want their rep­re­sen­ta­tive to under­stand their every­day chal­lenges and are will­ing to work with any­one to solve them,” Glue­senkamp Perez said in a state­ment sent to the press.

“As a small busi­ness own­er of a repair shop, I know first-hand that gov­ern­ment is often in the way and that crime is out of con­trol. I’ll work to stream­line bureau­cra­cies and secure invest­ments for things like job train­ing pro­grams to give peo­ple real skills to get good jobs, so small busi­ness­es like mine can final­ly solve work­er shortages.”

The poll was con­duct­ed for the Glue­senkamp Perez cam­paign by the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-aligned firm Expe­di­tion Strate­gies from August 25th-30th, 2022. 400 like­ly gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed. The poll has a mar­gin of error of +/- 4.9%.

The cam­paign says that in addi­tion to find­ing Glue­senkamp Perez just ahead of Kent in an ini­tial head-to-head, its research has found that Kent is “well known and wide­ly dis­liked among dis­trict vot­ers.” Specif­i­cal­ly, 75% of respon­dents said they know enough to have formed an opin­ion of Kent, with 39% express­ing an unfa­vor­able view. Notably, 30% have a strong­ly neg­a­tive view.

Few­er vot­ers have formed an opin­ion about Glue­senkamp Perez yet, but most of those who do have an opin­ion indi­cat­ed their first impres­sions are pos­i­tive. 29% over­all view her favor­ably and anoth­er 17% view her unfavorably.

The cam­paign’s inter­nal polling was men­tioned and repro­duced by Politi­co’s Play­book newslet­ter this morn­ing, ensur­ing it will be noticed by at least some folks in the Oth­er Wash­ing­ton. The Cook Polit­i­cal Report already reclas­si­fied the con­test as “Leans Repub­li­can” fol­low­ing Her­rera Beut­ler’s loss last month.

Glue­senkamp Perez’s cam­paign has pub­lished and dis­trib­uted a memo shar­ing select­ed high­lights from its inter­nal poll, which you can read below.

A notable num­ber of respon­dents said that they think the terms “a MAGA sup­port­er” and “extrem­ist” best describe Kent, who has loud­ly gone on record in defense of the Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion­ists and demand­ed they be left alone.

Right wing talk show host Michael Medved recent­ly opined that the Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty is in trou­ble in the wake of Ken­t’s vic­to­ry.

Medved also char­ac­ter­ized Glue­senkamp Perez as the lead­ing candidate.

“I think that most peo­ple of con­science will not be able to sup­port Joe Kent, whether he’s the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee or not. And this is the basic point. These are pri­maries we’re talk­ing about. The rea­son Jaime [Her­rera] Beut­ler lost is not because she doesn’t have major­i­ty sup­port in her dis­trict. It’s because Repub­li­cans were split here,” Medved said in an appear­ance on the Gee and Ursu­la Show. “Democ­rats were unit­ed, there was only one Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date, who I believe has to be con­sid­ered the front run­ner right now in that district.”

Medved then point­ed out that the Repub­li­can Par­ty has turned into a cult.

“I find it intense­ly wor­ri­some and very depress­ing that one of our two major par­ties has become a more like a cult of per­son­al­i­ty where basi­cal­ly every­thing is mea­sured, and every­thing is eval­u­at­ed based upon your loy­al­ty to one man.”

While Medved’s obser­va­tion about the Repub­li­can Par­ty is spot on, it’s worth not­ing that Wash­ing­ton State uti­lizes a two part gen­er­al elec­tion rather than a real pri­ma­ry to select can­di­dates for office. If Her­rera Beut­ler did in fact have over­all major­i­ty sup­port in WA-03, she would have sur­vived and advanced to the Top Two, regard­less of the ultra MAGA fac­tion vot­ing for anoth­er candidate.

But she lost because most Repub­li­can vot­ers turned on her and she could­n’t get Demo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port to make up for it. Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers not sur­pris­ing­ly opt­ed for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date — Glue­senkamp Perez. It is a sce­nario that the can­di­date has been talk­ing about for months on the trail with any­one who would listen.

Now that sce­nario has come to pass. There’s no incum­bent in this race any­more. By all accounts, inter­est in her can­di­da­cy among Democ­rats is skyrocketing.

So are dona­tions: Glue­senkamp Perez raised more than $600,000 just in August.

Repub­li­cans may scoff at the notion of WA-03 flip­ping this Novem­ber. But Mary Pel­to­la’s win this week in Alas­ka demon­strates that what has long been thought of as Repub­li­can turf can be won by a Demo­c­rat, espe­cial­ly when the Repub­li­cans put up an unap­peal­ing can­di­date. Any­thing is pos­si­ble in politics.