Marie Gluesenkamp Perez wins: Democrats flip WA-03 back to blue, defeat Joe Kent

Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict will soon be rep­re­sent­ed by a Demo­c­rat again. Today, major mass media out­lets pro­ject­ed that small busi­ness own­er Marie Glue­senkamp Perez has pre­vailed over ultra MAGA Repub­li­can Joe Kent in the hard-fought race to pick a suc­ces­sor to incum­bent Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, who Repub­li­can vot­ers oust­ed in August for insuf­fi­cient loy­al­ty to Don­ald Trump.

The pro­jec­tion for Glue­senkamp Perez was trig­gered by a Sat­ur­day count of bal­lots in Clark Coun­ty, the dis­tric­t’s vote-rich base, that showed Glue­senkamp Perez hold­ing steady, with Kent stalled out. Clark’s pool of out­stand­ing bal­lots now num­bers just 5,000. The dis­tric­t’s oth­er coun­ties have col­lec­tive­ly less than that.

“I am hum­bled and hon­ored by the vote of con­fi­dence the peo­ple of South­west Wash­ing­ton have put in me and my cam­paign,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Marie Glue­senkamp Perez in a state­ment. “Right up to the end, far-away pun­dits and prog­nos­ti­ca­tors said this race could­n’t be won. They dis­missed the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a mod­er­ate Demo­c­rat focused on pri­or­i­tiz­ing the needs of this dis­trict over par­ti­san point scor­ing could win in a rur­al, work­ing class district.”

“But nation­al pun­dits did not know this dis­trict and its com­mu­ni­ties the way we do here on the ground. I know the peo­ple in my dis­trict are look­ing for rep­re­sen­ta­tion that focus­es on find­ing com­mon ground and deliv­er­ing results, not the extreme hyper­par­ti­san­ship and click­bait pol­i­tics offered by my oppo­nent. They want their inde­pen­dent voice in Con­gress to be a small busi­ness own­er and a mom who works in the trades, not an extreme politi­cian seek­ing celebrity.”

“At the out­set of the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign we said this race would be a bell­wether for the direc­tion of our pol­i­tics and the strength of our democ­ra­cy, and that remains true today. Joe Ken­t’s can­di­da­cy gave voice to some of the dark­est impuls­es in our pol­i­tics: white nation­al­ism, xeno­pho­bia, and author­i­tar­i­an­ism. South­west Wash­ing­ton looked them straight in the eye and said no — not here, not now, not ever.”

“The peo­ple have spo­ken, not just here but all around the coun­try: they want rep­re­sen­ta­tives who will seek to build rather than destroy, who will lis­ten and do the work rather than bask in celebri­ty, and who will focus on sub­stance, not slo­gans or sound bites. To the peo­ple of South­west Wash­ing­ton: I pledge to you that I will work every day to live up to the respon­si­bil­i­ty you have placed in me, and will deliv­er the help work­ing and mid­dle class fam­i­lies need.”

Glue­senkamp Perez and her sup­port­ers gath­ered at Loow­it Brew­ing in Van­cou­ver after the race was called to cel­e­brate hav­ing pulled off what is being called an upset, but what was in real­i­ty always a winnable race that sim­ply need­ed to be run by a strong can­di­date able to run a cam­paign based on iden­ti­ty and trust.

NPI’s cred­i­ble, accu­rate polling showed almost two months ago that Glue­senkamp Perez was com­pet­i­tive against Joe Kent and could win.

We were the only orga­ni­za­tion that inde­pen­dent­ly sur­veyed like­ly vot­ers in the dis­trict between the August 2022 Top Two elec­tion and this mon­th’s Novem­ber 2022 gen­er­al elec­tion and then pub­licly released our key findings.

“It won’t be easy… but a Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ry in WA-03 this cycle is an achiev­able objec­tive,” I wrote back in Sep­tem­ber when we assessed the polling data.

Marie Glue­senkamp Perez and her team have now proved our assess­ment cor­rect. They ran a strong cam­paign that was fresh and imag­i­na­tive — one that focused on a hope­ful and pos­i­tive vision for the future rather than the pol­i­tics of destruc­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion that Repub­li­can Joe Kent represents.

Kent, inci­den­tal­ly, isn’t con­ced­ing — and no one expect­ed him to.

He tweet­ed today: “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. We’re on the streets bal­lot cur­ing. The fight goes on while the talk­ing heads talk. Pow­er dry & check your ballot.”

It is true that pro­jec­tions have no legal sig­nif­i­cance. But Kent is behind by 4,621 votes and is not going to be able to catch up by get­ting bal­lots cured.

For the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, the vic­to­ry is the excla­ma­tion mark on a midterm cycle that was anoth­er blue wave. The par­ty’s cap­ture of WA-08 was the sig­na­ture win of the 2018 midterms. This will undoubt­ed­ly be the sig­na­ture win of the 2022 midterms. It’s a pick­up that Democ­rats sore­ly need­ed in the incred­i­bly close bat­tle with the Repub­li­cans for a House majority.

“Planned Par­ent­hood is thrilled to con­grat­u­late Marie Glue­senkamp Perez on her vic­to­ry in WA-03. As a for­mer Planned Par­ent­hood patient, Marie under­stands the impor­tance of acces­si­ble, afford­able, high-qual­i­ty repro­duc­tive health care,” said Court­ney Nor­mand, Wash­ing­ton State Direc­tor at Planned Par­ent­hood Alliance Advo­cates, in a state­ment. “We know she will be a stead­fast cham­pi­on for abor­tion rights and repro­duc­tive health care access in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and we look for­ward to work­ing with her to improve health care for all Washingtonians.”

NPI’s sur­vey found in Sep­tem­ber that a major­i­ty of like­ly vot­ers in the 3rd pre­ferred Glue­senkamp Perez’s posi­tion sup­port­ing repro­duc­tive rights, while only a third pre­ferred Joe Ken­t’s extreme posi­tion oppos­ing repro­duc­tive rights. We char­ac­ter­ized that find­ing as impor­tant to her chances of win­ning the race.

Rox­ana Norouzi of OneAm­er­i­ca called the win “the result of decades of orga­niz­ing and elec­toral work in south­west Wash­ing­ton.” Norouzi added: “In a race as close as this, every vot­er-to-vot­er con­ver­sa­tion mat­ters. As of right now, there are just over 5,000 votes between Marie and Kent–we con­tact­ed 20,000 vot­ers in the 3rd and helped close that gap.  Our door-to-door can­vass­ing, phone bank­ing and mail helped make immi­grants a sig­nif­i­cant and clear mar­gin of vic­to­ry for this race.”

NPI con­grat­u­lates Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Marie Glue­senkamp Perez and all of her sup­port­ers on this incred­i­ble win. This is an era-defin­ing tri­umph that will go down in the annals of Wash­ing­ton State and Amer­i­can polit­i­cal his­to­ry. WA-03 has returned to hav­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion with a young Demo­c­rat who is pre­pared to work hard and pro­vide excel­lent con­stituent services.

We look for­ward to Marie’s swear­ing-in this Jan­u­ary, and to includ­ing her votes in our Last Week In Con­gress series in the 118th Congress.

POSTSCRIPT: Port­land tele­vi­sion sta­tions have run sto­ries about Glue­senkamp Perez’s vic­to­ry. Here’s one from KOIN and here’s one from KGW.