Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, left, and state Sen. Leader John Braun, both candidates for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District seat.
Left image: Jenny Kane/AP; Right image: Jenny Kane for OPB
Democratic incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez leads her race against Republican state Sen. John Braun for a key Southwest Washington U.S. House district after a triumphant night for Democrats nationwide.
Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress, according to the Associated Press, including multiple Senate seats that haven’t been held by the party in decades and House districts that were redrawn to favor Republicans.
The AP has not yet called the 3rd District race, but initial results were enough for Gluesenkamp Perez to declare victory.
“We are really confident in the numbers we’re seeing come in,” she told supporters Tuesday night in the ballroom of The Academy in downtown Vancouver. “We are proud and confident that we are going to carry this seat.”
Early results show Gluesenkamp Perez with a double-digit lead. If that holds, the victory would be the Democrats’ third electoral win in a district that backed Donald Trump in each of his three presidential contests.
Gluesenkamp Perez, the co-owner of an auto repair shop and advocate of rural industries and skilled trades, displays a brand of politics that can be hard to pin down. She votes with fellow Democrats most of the time in the House, but has also made high-profile defections and consistently ranks as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress.
At his own campaign event in Chehalis Tuesday night, Braun said he would wait for more ballots to be counted to concede. The 3rd District is a key, nationally watched battleground House race.
After media outlets began to call a Texas Senate race for Democrat James Talarico, the Vancouver ballroom hosting Gluesenkamp Perez’s party erupted into applause. The excitement built as more Senate races — in Kansas, Iowa and Ohio — were called for Democrats.
By the time Gluesenkamp Perez took the stage for her speech, the mood in the room was electric.
“I have talked to thousands of voters over this year, and they have told me that they have lost faith in Congress,” she said. “But Southwest Washington is a fundamental part of rebuilding a Congress that is loyal and faithful to our community.”
“The way that I have seen people operating in Congress is like a frat house,” she said. “And they act with impunity.”
The next Congress, she said, needs to pass an “anti-corruption package,” mentioning ethics standards and banning stock trading.
Gluesenkamp Perez has leaned into her independent brand despite frustration from many progressive voters in Washington’s 3rd District, which spans thousands of square miles of forests, farmland, industrial waterfronts and growing cities. The district was previously held for six terms by Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, who lost to a polarizing figure, Joe Kent, in the 2022 primary.
Republicans were hopeful this year that Braun, a more conventional candidate than Kent, would be able to flip the seat. But many political observers viewed the race as Gluesenkamp Perez’s to lose amid a national political environment that favored Democrats.
In the 2022 and 2024 elections, Gluesenkamp Perez faced Kent, narrowly defeating him — by 2,629 votes — in 2022, and by 16,123 votes in 2024. The AP called both of those races the Saturday after Election Day.
As of Tuesday night, the AP estimated 67% of ballots in the district had been counted, with Gluesenkamp Perez up by 28,146 votes. The next tallies are expected by Wednesday evening, according to the Washington Secretary of State’s office.
In the lead-up to Election Day, Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun separated themselves on issues like the Iran war, immigration enforcement, and a state ballot initiative to ban transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams, which appears to be passing in early returns. The race was also marked by millions of dollars in outside spending, negative TV ads and Trump’s endorsement of Braun.
“It was never about the President’s endorsement,” Braun said to reporters gathered at his campaign event in Chehalis on Tuesday night. “It was always about running a campaign that was focused on Southwest Washington.”
He currently serves as the minority leader in the state Senate and has been in the legislature since 2013. He previously spent 31 years in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserve. He’s also President of Braun Northwest, a family-owned emergency vehicle manufacturing company in Chehalis.
