Carolyn Long talks with citizens of the greater Lewis County area during a town hall meeting at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis earlier this month.
As the race in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District garners national attention, both candidates are bracing for a furious final push before the hotly contested campaign goes to voters this fall.
Democratic challenger Carolyn Long has turned the reelection bid of Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, usually a sleepy affair, into a closely watched race amid a flurry of national endorsements following a narrow primary election.
“This is a different year than we’ve seen,” Herrera Beutler said Friday. “I’ve never considered myself entitled to this seat. I get to make my case to voters. … I think I’ve done a solid job of tracking their priorities.”
Long, meanwhile, said she is optimistic that voters are ready to flip the district, long a GOP stronghold.
“We’re feeling pretty good,” she said. “There’s enormous energy in this race.”
Last week, Long went up with her first campaign ad, touting her background and stances on economic issues. She now boasts backing from powerful fundraising groups like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Emily’s List, and interest groups like the Sierra Club and End Citizens United. Her supporters include a who’s-who of Washington Democrats, as well as an endorsement from potential presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Last week, the nationwide news service McClatchy ran a story on the race with this headline: “Blue wave threatens to wash away one of GOP’s few Hispanic congresswomen.”
But Long, a Washington State University, Vancouver professor maintains that the strength of her campaign is local, citing the dozens of town halls she’s held in the district since announcing her campaign. Both candidates have traded accusations of an insufficient on-the-ground presence: the incumbent has attacked Long for living in Salem until last July, contrasting it with her own longtime residency in the district.
Long maintains that her decades of teaching in the community are a more than sufficient presence, adding a shot at Herrera Beutler for a dearth of town hall meetings.
“I’ve had more voter contact in my 37 town halls than she’s had throughout her congressional career,” Long said.
Herrera Beutler said her career has seen her at many town halls, telephone town halls and public meetings, and played up the residency issue by noting she hears constituent concerns in church and from her neighbors. Long’s focus on taking questions in person in front of voters is too narrow, she said.
“I think accessibility is hugely important,” she said. “To assume in today’s world there’s one tool in your toolbox to communicate with people, I think it’s uncreative.”
Meanwhile, the incumbent is touting her bipartisan work on local issues, like legislation to overturn a tribal distillery ban that has stifled a Chehalis Tribe development venture.
“I really have chosen to be the local congresswoman, not to go be a party leader,” she said. “(Long) has made Trump her biggest issue. … That’s why there’s some different attention on this than there has been in the past. People are trying to make this a big national race.”
Long asserts that it’s easy to be bipartisan on local issues, such as a salmon restoration effort to remove sea lions that has long enjoyed broad regional support.
“That’s a local issue, that isn’t a partisan issue,” she said. “We’re looking at some major policy differences on tax relief, healthcare, prescription drugs, education.”
Both candidates referenced the tax bill: Herrera Beutler credited the cuts with helping the local economy, while Long said it disproportionately helped corporations and wealthy individuals.
“Saying that this economic progress is connected to the tax bill is not accurate,” she said, adding that she would keep cuts that help working class families.
Each contender has also tried to claim the bipartisan label. Long touted the endorsement of Michael Cortney, a Republican who lost his bid for the seat in the August primary. Herrera Beutler cited a Georgetown University ranking that named her the 15th most bipartisan member of the House.
Following a packed forum in Woodland this week that both called a great event, the candidates have reignited their debate over debates. Long is calling for actual debates that give candidates the opportunity to challenge and respond to each other, like a League of Women Voters of Clark County event that was canceled when Herrera Beutler bowed out, citing a scheduling conflict.
“I don’t know how you don’t call that a debate, when each person gets asked a question,” Herrera Beutler responded.
Semantic disputes aside, both candidates said they’ll be pressing hard going into the final stages of the campaign.
“I want to make sure that I’m leaving no stone unturned,” Herrera Beutler said. “I’m going to work as hard as I can to get the facts out to voters.”
Long pointed to the 1,250 volunteers who have worked on her campaign, saying they will push her over the top.
“My campaign has real bipartisan support within the 3rd District,” she said. “For the next several weeks, we’re going to focus on direct voter contact.”
