New Poll: Tight Race in WA3rd Congressional District

It’s a dead heat in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, one of the country’s most closely watched House races, according to a reliable poll of Southwest Washington voters taken earlier this month.

The survey of 624 likely voters, taken by Public Policy Polling, found moderate Democrat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez with 46 percent, and outspoken MAGA Republican Joe Kent tied at 46 percent; 8 percent were unsure of how they will vote. Fifty-five percent of respondents in the PPP poll participated via text messaging while 45 percent were interviewed on land lines. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

A similar poll by PPP in 2022 had Kent up by three points, signaling the chance for an upset that few Democrats or pundits felt possible. The poll, along with a New York Times profile of the race, brought much needed donations to the Gluesenkamp-Perez campaign.

“Washington’s 3rd has replaced Washington’s 8th as the state’s most competitive district,” said Andrew Villeneuve, executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, which commissioned the poll. Villeneuve is an active Democrat, but PPP has a long track record of forecasting both triumphs and travails of Democratic candidates.

Suzi LeVine, former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and a Democratic strategist, wrote to friends late yesterday: “The bad news is that she’s tied. The good news is that, two years ago, she was down and then enough of the undecideds broke for her and she won by 2,000 votes.

“And for those not from Washington state — hers was the surprise upset in 2022 and she is one of three Dems who won in Trump 2020 districts.” (The national 538 website, which predicts all House races, at one point rated Kent’s chances of victory in 2022 at 97 percent.)

A lot has changed in two years. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee gave almost no help to Gluesenkamp-Perez in 2022, but it is now running ads against Kent, charging that Kent is a conspiracy theorist, opponent of U.S. aid to Ukraine, and has suggested that federal disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci be arrested and put on trial.

Gluesenkamp was elected thanks to votes from populous Clark County, a Portland suburb. She has, in office, embarked on an intensive courtship of rural, conservative agriculture and fisheries communities in the 3rd District. MGP has, for instance, gone “Deere” hunting. She is lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation that would require farm equipment makers, such as John Deere, to allow farmers to repair their own equipment without returning it to the manufacturer. She has sought Republican cosponsors of legislation and veered from the Democrats’ party line on such questions as forgiving student loan debt.

A co-owner (with her husband) of a Portland auto repair shop, Gluesenkamp-Perez has courted blue-collar workers who were once a staple Democratic constituency. The resource-dependent 3rd District is a sort of rust belt in Washington, and it sent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler to Congress for six terms. Gov. Jay Inslee, who approved and then vetoed a methanol refinery at Kalama, has not devoted attention to this part of the state..

Its political picture has been clouded of late. Herrera Beutler was one of 10 House Republican who voted to impeach President Trump after the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. A vengeance-minded Trump endorsed Kent, and opened his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to a Kent fundraiser. Kent won the primary, and prominent Herrera Beutler supporters endorsed his Democratic foe. Herrera Beutler is now attempting a political comeback by running for the state office as Lands Commissioner.

Two moderate “blue dog” Democrats, Gluesenkamp-Perez and Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, find themselves at or near the top of Republicans’ target list in 2024. The two women have aided each other in fundraising.