The Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Endorsement

Why MGP can win (again) in Washington's 3rd congressional district.

In 2022, election forecasters gave Marie Gluesenkamp Perez just a 2 percent chance of winning in Washington’s 3rd congressional district. Not only were they wrong, but they also learned what happens when you bet against a dynamic pragmatist running against an extremist in a competitive district. Marie won with a 3,000-vote margin that cycle against MAGA conspiracy theorist Joe Kent. This November, she’s up against Kent again for a rematch in what will be another competitive race.

This time around, the professional prognosticators have upgraded Marie’s chances of winning to 54%. And while it’ll be a tough battle for the Blue Dog incumbent, Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez is positioned stronger than ever.

Not only has she earned a reputation in Congress for listening to and working for her constituents — even when it means bucking party leadership on issues like student loan debt cancellation — but her bipartisan credentials and fundraising capabilities have made this Trump+5 district worthy of defending.

We’ve written extensively about Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez and her fellow Blue Dog co-chairs. Her cross-partisan appeal, commitment to Team Normal and hyper-focus on localization in politics has earned her not only electoral success, but earned media as well. POLITICO’s deep dive on Marie was even headlined “She’s a Blue-Collar, Bible-Quoting, Israel-Supporting, Pro-Choice, Millennial Latina. Is She the Future of Democratic Progressivism?”

Why Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Can Win

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez, coined MGP like another very popular young Latina Democrat, has been out-raising Kent 4:1, showing she’s equipped for a tough general election. Focused on defining herself in-district as a champion of blue collar workers and known to pick strategic fights with the left, MGP has collaborated with her congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle and called for less government regulation to protect jobs in Washington State.

And in the midst of all of that, she somehow even found time this summer to fix a broken radio in her colleague Rep. Virginia Foxx’s car.

The New York Times ran a lengthy profile of MGP focused on her agenda to make it easier for workers to make a living. The piece notes that when she interviews potential staff, she asks them about what type of car they own. (Note: her legislative director drives a Toyota Camry with more than 200,000 miles on it — the favorite car of one Welcome staffer’s anti-Trump conservative father).

MGP has a raft of blue collar solutions that meet the needs of people in her district. She emphasizes in the Times piece that “college graduates were getting their student loans forgiven, but kindergartners in her district were stuck in classrooms without modern air-conditioning,” and that “auto shops like hers could no longer source replacement parts from American manufacturers.”

Further, she focuses on issues that hit home for voters, emphasizing the need to cut red tape that keeps everyday Americans from living efficient and productive lives: rules that prevent daycare employees from peeling bananas for babies, and rules that prevent independent auto workers from fixing cars and aftermarket manufacturers from producing car parts for more than a decade after a patent is introduced.

POLITICO’s profile of MGP includes a picture of the enormous chainsaw she had installed in her office (a tribute to her maternal grandfather’s career as a logger in Washington State) and a quote from a Republican constituent who admits MGP is the first Democrat he’s ever supported: “Patrick Reynolds, a lifelong Republican, told me he’ll vote for her in November — after voting for a third GOP candidate in the 2022 primary and then abstaining from the general. With one daughter in the trades and another hoping for a military career, he likes where Gluesenkamp Perez stands on those issues. He also was impressed with her as a person, saying she once left him a voicemail based on a Facebook comment he made.”

A January 2023 POLITICO feature headlined “She Fixes Cars. Can She Fix Congress’ Elitism Problem?” teased out some of what we consider MGP’s “escape velocity” nature from the Democratic brand:

I don’t think that your traditional pedigreed Democrats are the solution to Trump extremism. I think that a lot of these traditional Democrats, the m.o. is to go into a community and start explaining shit. Nobody likes that. I’ve heard that so often: I’ll go to an urban community, and people will be like, “Oh, like this candidate was amazing. They are so smart.” And then I’ll go to a rural community and talk to them about the same candidate. And they’ll say: “Yeah, they’re pedantic and they don’t understand. They didn’t listen to us.”

That’s a Welcome incumbent – and that’s how we flip districts that forecasters say we have little chance of winning. 

The District

Washington’s 3rd congressional district, which includes the southwestern part of the state, has swapped hands for the past several decades, controlled by Democrats through the ’80s and early ’90s, swapping to Republicans for the late ’90s. Democrat Brian Baird held the seat from 1999 until he retired in 2011 and was replaced by moderate Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, who swept in during the 2010 Republican wave. Beutler, one the party’s few women of color, was seen as a rising star in the GOP, and her moderate style worked well for the swing district. But after voting to impeach Trump, she narrowly lost the 2022 Republican primary to extremist Joe Kent. 

The district went for Trump by 4.2 points (50.8% Trump, 46.6% Biden) in 2020 after he won by 7.4 points (49.9% to 42.5%) in 2016. As the district becomes more purple, it creates opportunities for candidates like MGP, even in tough cycles like 2024. 

In August, Gluesenkamp Perez came out on top in the district’s primary election, which takes the top two vote-getters to the general election in November. She bested Kent 47% to 38%, over-performing the lead she was anticipated to have. Primary elections don’t determine general election results, but they can be telling.

House Speaker Mike Johnson got this picture, coming out to the district a few weeks ago to join Kent in a fundraiser as Republicans vie to reclaim control of the seat.

The Repeat Republican Challenger

MGP will face far-right election denier Joe Kent for a rematch in November. Last cycle, Kent’s surprise upset over moderate Jaime Herrera Beutler helped put WA-03 into contention. Kent claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and has ties to white nationalist Nick Fuentes, Proud Boy member Graham Jorgenson, and Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson. 

Kent has a laundry list of conspiracy theories, including most recently his assertion that officers in the Secret Service may have been “in on” the July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. 

Kent is known for his attacks on law enforcement and has threatened to defund the FBI, calling it, “a secret domestic intelligence agency” that will “continue to take us down this road towards total authoritarianism.” 

Join Us

Support Marie Gluesenkamp Perez via our Win the Middle slate as she defends her seat in November and keeps Joe Kent out of Congress.