In congressional rematch, independent voters again hold sway in Southwest Washington

Editor’s note: Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Stay informed with OPB on the presidential race, key congressional battles and other local contests and ballot measures in Oregon and Southwest Washington at opb.org/elections.

Longview Republican John Kenagy had, more or less, made up his mind. As he took a seat near the front row of the debate between Southwest Washington’s congressional candidates, he said former president Donald Trump lost his vote.

“I can’t trust him,” Kenagy, 79, said inside the Lower Columbia College auditorium. “I do believe he lost the election and it fired up an insurrection.”

That weariness extended to Trump acolytes, Kenagy added. He planned to vote for incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez to represent Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.

“She has to push back against Democratic leadership, and that’s pretty impressive,” he said.

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The race between the congresswoman and her Republican challenger Joe Kent is a dead heat. It is expected to be one of the tightest ballot counts in the nation, alongside Oregon’s 5th Congressional District between Democratic lawmaker Janelle Bynum and incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

In a swing district, both candidates are trying to court voters who are either undecided or willing to cross party lines.

“There’s this smaller slice — and we still don’t know exactly who they are — who are going to make the difference,” said Mark Stephan, political science professor at Washington State University’s campus in Vancouver.

Donald Trump won the district in 2020. While he ultimately lost the U.S. election, he bested Joe Biden in the region by 16,000 votes.

Only two years later, then-unknown Democrat Gluesenkamp Perez upset the Trump-endorsed Kent by roughly 2,700 votes. Hundreds of district voters also split their ballot, picking a Republican senate candidate and eschewing Kent. That recent political history makes predictions of the once solidly conservative district difficult in a way that is perhaps only rivaled in 2024 by the presidential race itself.

Trump still popular

Washington state does not require voters to register by party, so the partisan makeup of the county is less clear than in other states. The highest polling issues for people in Southwest Washington, according to Portland-based DHM Research, are homelessness, housing, crime and the cost of living.

Past election cycles – including Trump’s dominance in 2020 and former Republican U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler’s six terms – show the district slightly favors Republicans, Stephan said. Trump is also present on the ballot this time, which may benefit Kent.

Kent may not feel as pressured as his opponent to build a broad coalition, Stephan said. Still, the former Green Beret has tried in campaign materials to appear less like a soldier and more of a family man during this election.

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His recent television ads heavily feature his wife, two sons and his home in Yacolt while he discusses everything from gas and grocery prices to abortion.

“He’s doing a variety of small things to kind of soften people’s image of him overall,” Stephan said. “He may win this time around.”

The candidates are neck and neck, according to a recent poll. The Northwest Progressive Institute on Oct. 7 published a poll conducted in early October of 624 likely voters. It showed both candidates are polling at 46%.

Eight percent of likely voters said they were not sure. Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve told OPB he believes the congressional race “can go either way.”

Trump, meanwhile, still appears to be the district’s pick for president, according to the same poll. Despite the cloud of controversy after his loss in 2020, he is polling 5 percentage points higher than Vice President Kamala Harris.

Where is the middle?

Though his image in advertisements for the 2024 race is softer around the edges, Kent remains a Trump adherent. His policies echo the former president’s “America First” populism and he fundraised in August with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.

On the Lower Columbia College debate stage, he stuck close to the conservative playbook on national issues. He supported building a border wall and clamping down on immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Immigration has given Republicans some traction in other parts of the country, particularly in areas of America seeing an influx of immigrants during the Biden Administration. Although immigration has not notably impacted Southwest Washington, DHM Research’s John Horvick said it is an issue that weds with public safety in many voters’ minds.

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“That’s really the one thing about immigration and the border and drugs, those are just netted together really closely,” Horvick said.

Kent also opposed sending foreign aid to Ukraine.

“We’ve got to get our military off of other people’s borders, get them onto our southern border, finish the wall to stop the flow of fentanyl,” he said.

He has softened his stance on abortion, however. Kent previously supported a national abortion ban, but now says he would oppose one. He also said he would protect contraception and in vitro fertilization.

Kent acknowledged in an interview with The Seattle Times that when it comes to his changed view, “maybe the way I feel in my heart doesn’t reflect everyone else.”

Most conservative politicians across the country are striking similar chords in the run-up to the election, having seen since the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade that bodily autonomy is an issue where Democrats are finding success.

The right-leaning voter

Gluesenkamp Perez, however, is ducking her party, and has been doing so for much of her time in office.

The incumbent has refused to say who she plans to vote for president. Her campaign material, which has played up her rural living situation and her family’s long ties to the state, also now includes handshaking with Republican sheriffs.

Gluesenkamp Perez has touted her bipartisanship in debates. She co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of Democrats in solidly Republican districts. Last year, the Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy ranked her the fifth most bipartisan Democrat in Congress.

“I don’t care what the beltway thinks,” she told the debate audience.

She agreed in part with Kent about increasing security at the southern border. In Congress, she joined GOP-led legislation to bolster the U.S. Border Patrol.

She blamed the border for fentanyl and rising overdose deaths in the district. Her two largest counties – Clark and Cowlitz – saw combined fatal overdoses rise from 141 in 2020 to 212 in 2023, according to Centers for Disease Control data.

Gleusenkamp Perez also spurned the party line by voting against Biden’s student loan forgiveness plans. And, despite some constituents’ urging her to condemn Israel’s military incursions this year, she has not done so.

While avoiding national priorities for the Democratic party, she has stuck with her party on issues of local significance. Gluesenkamp Perez supports replacing the Interstate 5 Bridge between Vancouver and Portland, offering some ideological difference between her and Kent, who floated building a third bridge when the pair debated.

“Joe’s literally trying to sell you a bridge,” Gluesenkamp Perez said during the debate.

Recently, she has criticized plans to use tolls on the new bridge, contending that it would disproportionately impact her constituents who commute into Portland for work. That’s a similar position to Kent’s, as well as her Republican predecessor, Herrera Beutler.

Both candidates, meanwhile, have lamented the rising costs of housing and groceries. And both supported helping the timber industry, though Kent’s position goes further to give federally protected lands back to local communities.

Gluesenkamp Perez’s policies are tailored to create a big tent, Stephan said. He theorized that her campaign is banking that Trump is caustic enough Republicans will be likelier than Democrats to switch party.

“People who are living in and around Vancouver, for example, and who vote Democratic regularly, they’re not going to vote for Joe Kent,” he added. “It’s not going to happen.”