Washington 3rd Congressional District

Folks should pay attention to this US House race.

The is the Washington 3rd Congressional district. It is the southwest corner of Washington, from the state border to the outer suburbs of Tacoma and from the Cascade crest to the sea. It has been the only republican district on the Pacific for a while. It's been a reliably republican but this year things might have put it in play.

The current Representative of the district Jaime Herrera Butler has served in office there for a dozen years but she lost in the primary to a guy name Joe Kent. She was one of the last moderate republicans in congress, one of the few to vote to impeach TFG and that (and some minor redistricting) doomed her. Kent is a full on MAGA true believer, hates the deep state, believes liberal elites are waging war against "real americans", thinks BLM is a terrorist organization, thinks the Jan6 rioters were framed, militant anti-vaxer who things Covid was a scam, etc. He's also a green beret and worked for the CIA.

Running against him is Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez. She's got a degree in Economics from Reed College (one of the most leftwing colleges in the US) and she owns a small auto repair shop in Portland with her husband. She is a pretty standard center-left democrat.

Ordinarily she would have no chance, the district has a definite republican tilt (people not from here always think the west coast is solidly liberal but once you get away from the cities things go Deliverance pretty fast). Most of the people in the district are actually in Portland suburbs in and around Vancouver and thats where the more conservative types in Portland retreat to. It is also the home of a lot of Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, and other rightwing militia types.

Still it is a west coast suburb and the insane rightwing types are a minority (the more normal suburban republican types alas are not) so there is actually a real chance she can take it. Kent is ahead 47-44 in the last poll in late September but one of the things that is making polls less reliable this year is that they are based on "likely" voters, that is people voting in the last election. A bunch of people who are not regular voters are registering and planning to vote, many of them women responding to Roe being overturned. So it's a very close race. If you live there please be sure your registration is in order and if you have a few bucks donate, Portland is an expensive media market to advertise in.