Among the many nation’s most carefully watched races is a rematch in southwestern Washington’s third Congressional District, the place first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is defending her seat in opposition to Republican Joe Kent, a former Inexperienced Beret who has known as for the impeachment of President Joe Biden.
Different campaigns of be aware within the state embrace the eighth Congressional District, the place Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier is in search of a fourth time period, and the 4th Congressional District in central Washington. There is no such thing as a hazard of that seat flipping events, however the incumbent there may be Rep. Dan Newhouse, considered one of two remaining Home Republicans who voted to question former President Donald Trump. He faces a problem from the proper in Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran.
Right here’s a have a look at Washington’s liveliest congressional races, which remained too early to name after preliminary vote totals have been launched Tuesday evening:
third Congressional District
Gluesenkamp Perez, who owns an auto-repair store together with her husband, got here out of nowhere two years in the past to win a seat that hadn’t been in Democratic palms for over a decade. She beat the Trump-endorsed Kent by fewer than 3,000 votes out of almost 320,000 forged.
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Her predecessor, reasonable Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, held workplace for six phrases however did not survive the 2022 main after voting to question Trump over the Jan. 6 rebellion. The district narrowly went for Trump in 2020, making it a vital goal for each events this yr.
The race gained extra consideration final week when an arson assault struck a poll field in Vancouver — the district’s largest metropolis — scorching lots of of ballots. One other poll field was hit throughout the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon. Individuals who forged their votes within the focused Vancouver drop field have been urged to contact the county auditor’s workplace to obtain substitute ballots.
Throughout her tenure Gluesenkamp Perez has balanced progressive insurance policies with some measures common with Republicans, together with securing the U.S.-Mexico border — one thing she criticizes Biden for failing to do — and introducing a constitutional modification to power presidents to stability the finances.
She helps abortion entry and has hammered Kent, who beforehand has stated he supported a nationwide abortion ban, for altering his place after the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade. Kent now says abortion legal guidelines must be left as much as the states.
Gluesenkamp Perez helps insurance policies to counter local weather change, but additionally speaks overtly about being a gun proprietor. A high precedence is pushing a “proper to restore” invoice that may assist individuals get gear fastened with out having to pay exorbitant costs to the unique producer.
Kent is a former Inexperienced Beret who served 11 fight deployments earlier than becoming a member of the CIA. His spouse, Shannon, a Navy cryptologist, was killed by a suicide bomber in 2019 whereas preventing the Islamic State group in Syria, leaving him to lift their two younger sons alone. Kent remarried final yr.
His final marketing campaign raised questions on his ties to white nationalists after he employed a Proud Boy as a advisor and, throughout a fundraiser, lavished reward on Joey Gibson, the founding father of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer. Kent stated he disavows white nationalism.
He has cited inflation and unlawful immigration as high considerations.
Kent and Gluesenkamp Perez disagree on a serious native subject: the substitute of a serious bridge throughout the Columbia River between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Gluesenkamp Perez helps plans to exchange the prevailing bridge. Kent has argued {that a} separate new bridge must be constructed whereas the previous one is maintained. Plans for the substitute bridge would have “mild rail that dumps downtown Portland’s issues into downtown Vancouver,” Kent stated.
4th Congressional District
Newhouse’s bid for a sixth time period is working up in opposition to Sessler, who was considered one of two Trump-endorsed candidates within the August main. Collectively, Sessler and Tiffany Smiley took greater than 52% of the vote — spelling bother for the incumbent.
Newhouse is endorsed by the NRA and Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America, and he has principally steered away from the topic of Trump. He’s as a substitute targeted on agriculture and border safety in a state with tens of millions of acres of pastures, orchards and cereal grain lands the place immigrant labor is extraordinarily vital.
Sessler’s positions are in lockstep with Trump. He says he’ll struggle for sturdy nationwide safety measures, together with “an impenetrable border”; work to dismantle rules imposed by the Environmental Safety Company and different administrative businesses; and encourage tariffs and different sanctions on China.
“China’s obsession with world energy, mixed with its atheistic mindset, which removes the morality part, makes it a harmful adversary,” Sessler stated in considered one of many video statements about points posted to his marketing campaign web site.
eighth Congressional District
The eighth District, a mixture of rich Seattle exurbs and central Washington farmland, had at all times been held by the GOP earlier than incumbent Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, took workplace in 2019. She has survived a collection of considerably shut races since then, taking about 52% or 53% of the vote.
Schrier combines progressive stances, corresponding to defending abortion rights, with an emphasis on securing freeway cash or funding for specialty crop analysis amenities. The Washington Farm Bureau endorsed her this yr.
Schrier’s opponent is Carmen Goers, a business banker who says she is working to tamp down inflation, cease additional regulation of American companies, assist regulation enforcement and reduce on crime. She additionally promised to “go to conflict with the Division of Training,” saying that as a substitute of studying studying, writing and math, kids are being “caught within the tradition wars of the progressive left.”
Goers took 45% of the vote within the August top-two main, in comparison with about 50% for Schrier. Two different Democrats mixed for shut to five%.
