The Blue Dog Coalition is viewed with great suspicion around Daily Kos. The image of it being a thorn in the side of President Obama has been difficult to shed. However, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is helping rebrand the beleaguered group by focusing on populist messaging over corporate sponsorship.
Stylistically, the group’s three new co-chairs couldn’t have been more different from the Blue Dogs’ original members, who were mostly older white men from the South. The photo the Blue Dogs released announcing its new leadership — Golden in a plaid short-sleeve shirt revealing his tattoos, Gluesenkamp Perez sporting bangs, jeans and a denim shirt and Peltola wearing a riotous floral blouse — was jokingly referred to by some of their staff members as “the album cover.”
The differences were substantive, as well. The old Blue Dogs had come to be seen as the most conservative and big-business-friendly wing of the party. Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden wanted to drag the Blue Dogs into the Democratic Party’s modern era, refashioning them as a more populist group — one that pushes for a production economy rather than a financialized one, and one willing to take on big government and big business.
Most important, the new Blue Dogs wanted to make it possible for more people like themselves (“normal people,” Gluesenkamp Perez calls them), from more districts like theirs, to get elected to Congress. “For so long it’s been this narrative of to be a good candidate or a good representative, you should be a straight white male, no kids, J.D. and a trust fund,” Gluesenkamp Perez says.
That’s not to say that Rep. Marie Glusenkamp Perez hasn’t drawn criticism from progressives. Whether opposing student debt relief and gun safety, or for strict voter ID, MGP has compiled one of the most moderate records of any Democratic incumbent.
The question – is this independence enough for her to repeat her shock win of 2022?
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Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is probably the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent. She barely won a Trump district in 2022 and now faces an election with Trump on top of the ballot. That’s why I’ve included her in a group of 28 incumbents or open-seat races we are defending. #SaveTheMajority Fund.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez for Washington-3
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What's the Big Idea?
County results for WA-03 in 2022.
THIS HOUSE RACE IS RATED AS A TOSSUP, with an R+5 PVI
Southwestern Washington has been a swing area of the state for 60 years now, and it usually supports the party in power. Clinton won it twice with the help of Ross Perot, but GW Bush also won it twice very narrowly. Obama carried the district in 2008, but redistricting in 2010 turned it more conservative. That allowed Romney to carry it in 2012 and Trump to win it easily in both 2016 and 2020 (50.8% to 46.6% to be precise).
The Democratic Party held the seat from 1960 to 1994, when the Republican Revolution swept away Rep. Jolene Unsoeld. GOP Rep. Linda Smith did not last long in the seat after running for Senator in 1998. That allowed Rep. Brian Baird to win back this seat for Democrats. Baird held the seat until 2010, when he decided to retire instead of facing the building red-wave election.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler easily captured the seat during the 2010 red-wave, and she didn’t have any competitive races except for the one in 2018. She did well playing the “moderate” despite taking positions of a conservative. However, voting to impeach Trump was apparently a bridge too far for Republicans in the district. They chose to oust her in a primary with far-right Joe Kent, which gave unheralded Marie Gluesenkamp Perez the opening she needed to win.
Even with the incumbent losing in the primary and a far-right nominee in Joe Kent, the election was extremely close. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won 50.1% to 49.3% or by about 2,600 votes. This was the upset of the 2022 election as FiveThirtyEight gave her a 2% chance of winning. 320k voters weighed in on this election in 2022 compared to 418k during the 2020 election. How many of the missing voters are more favorable to Trump than Biden?
This pattern played out in the 2024 Top 2 primary as well. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won 45.9% of the 212k who voted — an ominous sign that tracks near what Biden won in the district. Joe Kent only won 39.3% of the vote as there were other challengers in the race. The fundamentals of the race favor Kent but there is still room for the incumbent to win. One strategy that could help is courting infrequent voters who skipped the primary. She also has to convince enough of the people who voted for other options in the primary to vote for her — a tall task but not impossible. Trump being on top of the ballot makes it that much tougher though.
Here’s where this 3rd district race will be won.
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Portland Suburbs: Many of the people along the Columbia River settle here to avoid taxes. Clark County isn’t big enough or blue enough to dominate the district, but it is the only reliable source of votes now. Perez will have to find every amenable voter and then some to have a chance of winning.
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Longview: This small city turned sharply to the right, and the county it is in is fairly hopeless for our side. However, there are still Democratic precincts in the city itself, and Perez has to win the city if she is to win the district in the fall.
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Pacific County: Here is where the legacy Democratic voters can be found — the ones who have recently started voting GOP. Perez has to win this swing county by a fair clip to even entertain thoughts of winning. Her blue-collar image hopefully will play well in this area.
Here’s where we need to keep the margins down, or we lose.
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Lewis County: This county is seriously the biggest problem with the district. It isn’t an especially large county, but it is large enough to punch above its weight. It usually goes 2-1 for GOP candidates, and that is the reason it will be a thorn in our side. MGP isn’t giving up on the county, however.
- Wahkiakum and Cowlitz Counties: These two counties used to be Democratic-leaning, but they have trended sharply to the right in recent times. Other than the city of Longview, there isn’t much to celebrate in either county. I expect Kent to do very well in these parts of the district but MGP needs to get as many votes as possible.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez: A Different Kind of Democrat
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is the co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition and vows it it better now.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was born in Harris County, Texas in 1988. Her father is from Mexico while her mother has deep roots in the state of Washington. She attended two small colleges and eventually graduated with a degree in economics. She has worked as a bike mechanic and opened up an automobile repair shop while moving to rural Skamania County.
Gluesenkamp Perez was not exactly a political novice when running for Washington’s 3rd district in 2022. She ran for positions in Skamania County in both 2016 and 2018 but was unsuccessful. She was a member of the Washington State Democratic Party executive committee from 2020 to 2022.
It is said that if you want a friend in Washington, DC that you should get a dog. Glusenkamp Perez has few friends in either caucus.
It has left Ms. Perez in a bit of a political no-man’s land. In the capital, her social circle consists mostly of two Republican Bible study groups, one of which includes Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the current chairman of the Republican House campaign arm that is actively targeting her for defeat.
Despite that, Ms. Perez, whose father was an Evangelical pastor, says she often feels more at home among religious Republicans. “I feel like my party is embarrassed I’m a Christian,” she said. She is broadly dismissive of some of the values of her own colleagues, whom she views as out of touch.
She’s also found political shelter in the Blue Dog Coalition.
When Gluesenkamp Perez arrived on Capitol Hill, she tried to find commonalities with her new colleagues. She didn’t have much success. “I’m like: ‘Oh, your bio says you’re a small-business owner. What’s your business?’” she told Politico at the time. “They’re like, ‘Oh, we have a family real estate brokerage firm.’” One of the few friendships she did strike up was with Jared Golden, a third-term Democratic representative from Maine. Golden was first elected in 2018 — part of the anti-Trump wave in which 31 Democrats won in districts that Trump carried just two years earlier. But by 2023, Golden was one of only five Democrats still in Congress who represented Trump districts. He had a little more company in the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, but just barely. At its peak in 2010, the Blue Dogs had 54 members, but after the 2022 elections, only 14 remained. Then half of them left in a dispute over the group’s direction. With the coalition having dwindled to seven members, Golden was asked to lead it.
The biggest win for Gluesenkamp Perez was the securing of $1.5B in federal funds to replace the aging I-5 bridge over the Columbia River. It is one of the worst transportation bottlenecks in the Pacific Northwest. This is a flashpoint in the race with Joe Kent calling it an “antifa superhighway” that would allow “criminal elements of Portland” to settle in southwestern Washington.
One of the main reasons I support Gluesenkamp Perez is her advocacy for the right to repair equipment. This bipartisan right is gaining steam in state houses and Congress. It would require auto and heavy equipment manufacturers to share parts, tools, and data needed to repair those machines yourself or allow independent repair firms to fix them for you.
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Gluesenkamp Perez is an ally of people in the trades as well. She stood against a new rule requiring a different safety device be required for table saws due to it favoring only one corporation. The reason she stood against student debt relief was that it did nothing for apprenticeship programs or trade schools.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is not the typical Blue Dog of yesteryear on social issues either. Abortion is a personal issue for her because she required a dilation and curettage to treat a miscarriage. She’s consistently voted against restrictions on abortion rights including a bill that would criminalize doctors who perform abortions.
Gluesenkamp Perez has a district with many rural constituents. Her attention to rural issues is very important to her re-election efforts. She is pushing hard to reopen a VA clinic in Lewis County. She’s introduced legislation to make farming loans more affordable. She’s fighting to save the Secure Rural Schools program from elimination. She also has proposed legislation to study flood risks on two rivers in her district. It is these small issues that can make a difference in her district.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is a different kind of Democratic incumbent from most of the others I’ve covered. She is a moderate Blue Dog that leans into her blue-collar and rural background as opposed to the white-collar and urban roots of most of her colleagues.
Joe Kent: Far-Right Militia Adjacent
For someone who claims to disavow far-right figures, Joe Kent keeps meeting them frequently.
Joe Kent was born in the Portland, Oregon metro area in 1980. He enlisted in the US Army right before 9/11 and served 11 combat deployments. He was an officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment before serving in the US Army Special Forces. After leaving the Army, Kent worked for the CIA starting in 2018. He left the intelligence agency after his wife was killed in the 2019 Manbij bombing in Syria.
Kent has tried to disavow his ties to militias and far-right figures but his record is appalling. He has played footsie with far-right influencer Nick Fuentes. Kent tried distancing himself from Fuentes but continued to meet with a group allied with the far-right figure. He also employed a consultant from the Proud Boys in 2022 named Graham Jorgensen. He claims the Proud Boys are “just a group to scare left-wing people”. He is linked to Joey Gibson of the far-right group Patriot Prayer. Gibson spoke at a fundraiser for Kent and heavily promoted his candidacy. Finally, neo-Nazi YouTube streamer Greyson Arnold interviewed Kent and met with him. That’s quite a rogue’s gallery of far-right figures!
For someone who claims that “if you are a white nationalist or white supremacist, I have no time for you whatsoever”, Kent spouts a lot of Great Replacement Theory and white nationalist rhetoric. He has called for a 20-year moratorium on immigration to “preserve a white majority” in America. He also supports mass deportation and ending birthright citizenship. His overarching theme may be Trump’s “America First” but he seems to want to put white Americans first over people of color.
Joe Kent also hasn’t heard a conspiracy theory he doesn’t believe. He has consistently stated that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and has called the January 6th insurrectionists “political prisoners”. Kent wants to defund the FBI for daring to investigate Trump. He also claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are an “experimental form of gene therapy” and that he is “proudly unvaccinated”.
Kent also supports a national abortion ban without any exceptions. He called abortion access the same as slavery and segregation. There’s no doubt that Kent would co-sponsor the Life at Conception Act to ban IVF treatments and birth control access as well. He has tried to pivot to the standard GOP position of “leave abortion up to the states” but he cannot run from his previous statements. He called the Dobbs decision a “great compromise” in a recent debate.
Kent is trying to pass himself off as a legislator in the mold of former Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler for the 2024 election. He’s trying again to distance himself from the far-right company he keeps and his extreme positions on the issues. If the November voters are more Trump-friendly, his “America First” positions may help him win.
How Can You Help?
If Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez loses it won’t be because she couldn’t raise money. These are the fresh FEC filing reports that came out October 15th. As of the end of September, here is where things stand.
It is clear that MGP has won the fundraising race with less than three weeks to go.
This is one of the most expensive races for independent expenditures in the nation. The DCCC and its allies have spent over $6.5M as of this week with more likely to come. The NRCC has spent over $2.5M as well for a grand total of just over $9M combined. That’s on top of the ads run by the candidates themselves.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is holding GOTV rallies on Saturday in Washougal and Felida. The campaign is also canvassing in Vancouver almost every day. She’s not neglecting Longview, a critical swing area of the district, either. She’s even reaching into redder areas like Centralia and Camas with her canvassing efforts.
Gluesenkamp Perez also has a very active virtual phone banking operation. There are shifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week until the election. There’s even times available on the weekends! MGP is leaving no stone unturned in her tough re-election.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez did win in 2022 but didn’t face an electorate primed to vote for Trump. She was held under 46% of the Top 2 primary vote which is a dangerous position for an incumbent to be in. She is the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent and holds the 6th most vulnerable seat held by the Democratic Party. Only 2 GOP incumbents have a lower score on Downballot’s House Vulnerability Index.
Joe Kent claims to disavow the far-right influencers and associates he’s been caught with but he keeps meeting them “unknowingly”. His policy planks certainly seem to appease the very people he disavows. He would be yet another addition to the House Freedom Caucus if elected and we have more than enough of those lunatics in the House already.
The only recent poll in this race is from the beginning of October, and it is from a Democratic-aligned group. It showed the incumbent and the challenger deadlocked at 46%. That isn’t a great result for either candidate and shows this is a true tossup.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has already won one race when the election odds didn’t favor her. The question for her is whether she can pull another rabbit out of the hat and do it in 2024.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez for Washington-3
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