Few folks paid a moment’s attention in 2022 when a Portland auto body shop owner, Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, made the finals for Congress in Washington’s 3rd District.
The district was trending Republican. All attention was on MAGA Republican Joe Kent, who ousted GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of 10 House Republicans who dared to vote to impeach President Trump after events of January 6, 2021. (Beutler is now attempting a political comeback, running for state Lands Commissioner.) A vengeance-minded Trump endorsed Kent.
What a difference two years makes. MGP was given a 3 percent chance of winning on Nate Silver’s tout sheet. Today, she is in Congress.
On the day after this year’s primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — who ignored Marie in 2022 — produced a collection of Joe Kent’s greatest hits. The DCCC is up on the air with spots denouncing Kent’s extremism in this rematch. The spots don’t feature party grandees, but salt-of-the-earth citizens.
Joe Kent is off, but running. He has, at various times, wanted to to defund the FBI, called for indictment of Dr. Anthony Fauci, defined January 6 rioters as political prisoners, bonded on the air with Tucker Carlson, and carried a Trump endorsement into battle. Kent has carried conspiracy suspicions to the first attempted Trump assassination. He has taken a virtual Kremlin line denouncing the U.S. arming of Ukraine.
The Democrats are painting with a broad brush this year. Turn on your TV for the omnipresent gubernatorial spot decrying Republican Dave Reichert’s “extreme” positions. With Kent, however, the shoe fits. He is linked to the Proud Boys and drawn support from the extremist Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.
The DCCC has blitzed media with press releases on Kent’s “toxic and conspiracy-ridden” views. One wonders why Washington State Republicans endorsed the guy. The wonder ceases with pictures of Kent and GOP state chairman, State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, from both the 2022 and 2024 campaigns.
In turn, the anti-Kent bombardment has freed up the Congresswoman to stress her constituent work and sponsorship of bipartisan legislation. She’s lately become a champion of job creation for those lacking a college degree. Seattle progressives continue to write checks to her campaign despite suspect votes, particularly her support for a Republican-sponsored energy bill.
MGP will never carry Lewis County and is unlikely to win in Cowlitz. But she can trim Kent’s margins in rural areas and hold her seat in populous Clark County. The 3rd District has twice voted for Trump, but the Biden Administration is putting $1.2 billion into replacing the aging, overcrowded Columbia River bridge used by Vancouver residents commuting into Portland.
The rule in Congress is that your first reelection is the toughest. MGP has drawn nationwide attention with her drive to reconnect the Democratic Party with its blue collar and rural roots. It’s a two-pronged approach, defining the opponent as a wacko bird while, in Marie’s words, she “gets shit done.”
A belated welcome to Southwest Washington, DCCC.
This story also appeared in Cascadia Advocate.
All the politics of the day. Concise. Energetic. Clear writing. For years. Thank you Connelly!
Marie is voting her District’s interests, which upsets some progressives. But the vast majority of us welcome her. And I think she will win.
Early on MGP got many of her Democratic congressional colleague’s panties in a bunch when she voted with Republicans to thwart the administration’s congressional efforts to forgive student loans. She explained in an interview with The Bulwark that very few of her constituents had student loans to forgive, and that the money would be better spent on education on the trades. She also pointed out that the state of Washington as a whole ranked 41st in the number of people with outstanding student loans. In a further doink to establishment Dems (and Congressional staffers) she also noted that the District of Columbia was the leading place with outstanding student loan debt.
I am reminded of Jolene Unsoeld, who won her election to the 3rd Congressional District in 1988 by a mere 618 votes. She was considered THE most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in 1990. Jolene pissed off Progressives, especially those in Olympia and King County, because she had a 95% rating by the NRA, and voted against gun control in her first term. She later voted against NAFTA, saying it was really bad for workers and the people of her district. Jolene was re-elected by a 7-point margin.
Marie reminds me a lot of Jolene. She listens to her heart and her constituents, not to the talking heads and the DCCC. May she have a long and successful career in Congress, keeping an eye to one of our US Senate seats.
I hope to vote for her in a statewide position in the future. She would make a fantastic senator.
Thank you, Joel, for writing about Marie’s campaign. One of the great rifts in American politics has been the shift of blue-collar voters away from the Democratic Party, which has for decades been moving away from supporting union activity and espousing more business-friendly, centrist policies. I think this was exemplified by President Clinton signing onto NAFTA — though in theory, since it allowed lower cost of goods coming from Mexico to the US, NAFTA may have benefitted consumers as a whole, it must have felt like a betrayal to the US workers whose factory jobs headed south of the border.