Gluesenkamp Perez declares win against Kent for Washington's 3rd District
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – As election results are finalized post-Election Day, Democratic congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez declared victory in her reelection campaign against Republican Joe Kent for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.
Just before 2 p.m. on Friday, the latest election data from the Washington Secretary of State's Office showed Gluesenkamp Perez had 51% of the vote while Kent had 48%. Nearly 11,000 votes separated the candidates.
While the Associated Press has not projected a winner in the race, Gluesenkamp Perez released a statement Thursday evening declaring victory.
“Thank you, Southwest Washington. Serving you in Congress is a profound honor and a gift I will never squander. I'm deeply grateful for this vote of confidence in the work I’ve done to set aside national politics and represent our community in Washington, D.C.," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "I will continue to honestly reflect the independence of Southwest Washington in everything I do as our voice in D.C. Our heritage as fiercely independent, loyal fighters for our community is as clear to me as it was the day my family and I decided to ask for the privilege of working for our community."
"My priorities in the next Congress will be the same as the people I represent: lowering costs for working people and middle class families, securing our Southern border and ending the flow of fentanyl into our communities, giving more people a shot at a good job that doesn't require a college degree, promoting careers and apprenticeships in the trades, establishing the right to repair our own stuff, and supporting Southwest Washington's farmers, growers, fishermen, and loggers," Gluesenkamp Perez said.
She continued, "I will fight any attempt to restrict the ability of a woman to see a doctor whenever she wants for whatever reason, and I will demand fiscal discipline when it comes to our national debt and deficit, instead of continuing tax giveaways to the top 1% and companies who ship jobs overseas and import cheap junk instead. I will put the views of Southwest Washington first in the votes I cast and the work I do, and I will stand up to political extremism, political violence, and any abuse of power or the public trust."
The congresswoman's statement comes as Republicans are poised to flip the Senate. With Donald Trump beginning his second term in January, Democrats and Republicans are vying for the House majority.
In a New York Times profile published Friday, the congresswoman credited her campaign's success in the red district to her "awareness of my community," highlighting casework she's helped her constituents with.
When asked by The Times what other Democrats can learn from her campaign, she criticized her party for appearing dismissive towards working-class voters.
"I was talking to a woman who runs one of the largest labor and delivery wards. She said 40 percent of the babies there have at least one parent addicted to fentanyl. What is empathetic — to tell them that’s their problem, or to take border security seriously?" Gluesenkamp Perez told the New York Times. "People are putting their groceries on their credit card. No one is listening to anything else you say if you try to talk them out of their lived experiences with data points from some economists."
In an interview with KOIN 6 News on Friday, the congresswoman added, "I can’t make any political machine really listen to me. The thing I’m trying to do here is get them to listen to America and my community as a reflection of that. You can’t walk away from people who are turning wrenches, and driving trucks, and changing diapers and expect to have anything to say from a leadership perspective. You’ve gotta be listening to people and taking them seriously.”
“Anybody will let you into their living room or their shop floor and it’s just a huge gift to be let into people’s lives in that way," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "It’s not going to fix things if we’re not listening to each other.”
KOIN 6 News reached out to the Kent campaign. This story will be updated if we receive a response.
Below is Gluesenkamp Perez's full statement from Thursday declaring her win:
I am deeply humbled by the tens of thousands of supporters who stood alongside me in this campaign, the patriotism and diligence of my staff, and for my friends and family – especially Dean – who have extended truth and grace to me on this challenging road. Your confidence in my ability to do this work and do it well has carried me through many long plane rides.
I wasn’t recruited to run for this position by any Respected Politicians – quite the opposite. Instead it has always been my friends and family who have held me to a high standard and been a compass to me. I’m so grateful for the moral bulwark and pragmatism of Southwest Washingtonians who stand with me in refusing corporate PAC money, funding our campaign with their hard-earned money. Thank you all for having my back even when we may disagree on the specifics -- it means the world to me.
Some far-away pundits and prognosticators swore I would lose this re-election campaign from the moment I took office. They dismissed our victory in 2022 as a fluke or an accident, and scoffed at the possibility that someone from the trades, the mom of a toddler, who didn’t have elected experience could effectively fight for her community in Congress, much less win re-election after being targeted as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the country.
But like two years ago, pundits made a fundamental mistake by viewing this race through a partisan lens. Our community has never seen ourselves this way, and it’s not how we evaluate who merits our vote for Congress. We want representatives who know and love our land, woods, and rivers on an intimate level, scotch broom and all. We want real work, real accountability and honesty about where our assets and vulnerabilities hold fast. This community was built by loggers with two-man misery whips, from trees too big to be felled alone. Today, the work in front of us is how we pass forward that gift, that spirit of cooperation to the next generation, to the kids I see in my son’s preschool class in Skamania County. It's almost laughable to me that national pundits could understand the gift and the depth of independence our heritage endows us with.
I think ninety percent of people in Southwest Washington agree on ninety percent of things, regardless of their political identity. We are not the sort of place where we define ourselves and our neighbors by our bumper stickers. Our gift is too great, our heritage too proud to walk away from the cooperative spirit of those who came before us. We work together in our communities to solve problems and keep each other safe. I will continue working with Republicans in Congress and here at home to deliver results and get things done for Southwest Washington, and my bipartisan staff will continue helping anyone who lives here with constituent casework needs and local concerns. We've returned over $3,000,000 to the people of Southwest Washington and changed the lives of veterans, farmers, and seniors in all seven counties in our district. This is what people want to see from their elected representatives: hard work, determination, and real results.
My priorities in the next Congress will be the same as the people I represent: lowering costs for working people and middle class families, securing our Southern border and ending the flow of fentanyl into our communities, giving more people a shot at a good job that doesn't require a college degree, promoting careers and apprenticeships in the trades, establishing the right to repair our own stuff, and supporting Southwest Washington's farmers, growers, fishermen, and loggers. I will fight any attempt to restrict the ability of a woman to see a doctor whenever she wants for whatever reason, and I will demand fiscal discipline when it comes to our national debt and deficit, instead of continuing tax giveaways to the top 1% and companies who ship jobs overseas and import cheap junk instead. I will put the views of Southwest Washington first in the votes I cast and the work I do, and I will stand up to political extremism, political violence, and any abuse of power or the public trust.
I will always be the person I was raised to be, someone who works to fix things, not break them. It has been a profound honor to be invited into so many living rooms, shop floors and community spaces across the district and the political spectrum – I’m deeply grateful to continue in this work. It is a privilege to listen, show up, do the work, and 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, I will continue to deliver results for our district, and I will continue to put the place we live above the national politics trying to divide us. It never will.