Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gres­sion­al hope­ful Marie Glue­senkamp Perez remained ahead of ultra MAGA Repub­li­can rival Joe Kent today as thou­sands of bal­lots were tab­u­lat­ed across the five coun­ties in Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd Con­gres­sion­al District.

To win, Glue­senkamp Perez must hold out against Kent in the late bal­lots, which doomed incum­bent Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler back in August.

On Elec­tion Night, Glue­senkamp Perez had an 11,123 vote lead.

100,564 votes were tab­u­lat­ed for her and 89,441 were tab­u­lat­ed for Kent.

In today’s count, that lead shrank to 10,273.

114,675 votes have now been tab­u­lat­ed for her and 104,402 for Kent.

Glue­senkamp Perez is win­ning Clark and Pacif­ic coun­ties, while Kent is win­ning Lewis, Cowlitz, Thurston, Wahki­akum, and Ska­ma­nia coun­ties. Clark is the dis­tric­t’s pop­u­la­tion cen­ter, with the largest con­cen­tra­tion of vot­ers in the 3rd.

Clark reports hav­ing about 70,000 bal­lots left to be processed.

Cowlitz, the dis­tric­t’s sec­ond largest coun­ty, reports hav­ing about 12,000.

Lewis has 6,000.

Pacif­ic, Wahki­akum, and Ska­ma­nia have less than a thou­sand combined.

Thurston has 35,000 bal­lots await­ing pro­cess­ing, but most of those are from precincts in the coun­ty that aren’t inside the 3rd Con­gres­sion­al District.

Glue­senkamp Perez’s lead yes­ter­day in Clark Coun­ty was 20,593 votes; that lead increased today to 22,106 votes even as the over­all lead shrank.

That is a very encour­ag­ing sign, because most of the out­stand­ing bal­lots are from Clark. Her­rera Beut­ler was only able to increase her advan­tage in Clark Coun­ty by a measly sev­en­teen votes over Kent on the sec­ond day of Top Two counting.

That left Her­rera Beut­ler very, very vulnerable.

If Glue­senkamp Perez does well in Clark Coun­ty in the next three counts, she stands a bet­ter chance of with­stand­ing a surge of ultra MAGA votes from Lewis and oth­er small but fierce right wing bas­tions with­in the district.

Cowlitz Coun­ty had not filed its Novem­ber 9th report at the time oth­er mass media report­ed on the day two count in the 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, but it now has.

In that coun­ty, which is home to com­mu­ni­ties like Kel­so and Longview, Kent has an advan­tage, but it’s not enor­mous. Ken­t’s Elec­tion Night lead in Cowlitz was 909 votes. How­ev­er, Kent more than dou­bled his Cowlitz lead today to 1,970 votes.

In reli­ably Repub­li­can Lewis Coun­ty, home to Cen­tralia and Chehalis, Ken­t’s advan­tage widened to 8,065 votes, up from 6,948 yesterday.

In Ska­ma­nia Coun­ty, Ken­t’s advan­tage went from 192 votes to 298 votes.

In Thurston Coun­ty, Ken­t’s advan­tage went from 1,696 votes to 1,775 votes.

Pacif­ic Coun­ty did not have a bal­lot drop today; there won’t be one until Mon­day. Wahki­akum also had no drop today, but one is planned for tomorrow.

Cowlitz and Lewis have only a frac­tion of the num­ber of out­stand­ing bal­lots that Clark has, so Kent will run out of run­way soon if he does­n’t make gains in Clark. Glue­senkamp Perez’s expan­sion of her Clark Coun­ty lead is a big deal. We’ll see if she can repeat that feat tomor­row, or else if not, at least hold steady.