Ruby Mushkin leaned back in a lawn chair and looked out over the Columbia River. She had plenty to say about U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, the Democrat facing Republican state Sen. John Braun in one of the country's tightest House races.
“She has not been representing the way I would like, said Mushkin, 54, sitting beside her friend Angie Frazier on a warm August day. "I'm not a centrist. I'm sure she’s trying to represent everybody, but I think she's misguided and I am not happy."
Mushkin recalled her anger when the House Democrat voted for the Republican-led SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
"She's a Democrat?" asked Frazier, 57, who had recently moved back to the area.
Mushkin nodded: "She's a Democrat who votes with Republicans a lot."
Mushkin is among the Democratic voters who helped elect Gluesenkamp Perez in 2022 — and helped hold her seat in 2024 — who are now unhappy with her record. In the August primary, 17% of Democratic primary voters backed progressive challenger Brent Hennrich over Gluesenkamp Perez, a notable protest vote. Support for Hennrich was even stronger in Clark County, anchored by the fast-growing and increasingly blue Vancouver area.
Now, with less than a month before the November midterm election, those voters must decide how to vote in an immensely tight race.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its rating of the race from a toss-up to leaning Democrat. Meanwhile, a recent OPB/DHM Research poll, within the poll's 4.2-point margin of error, found Braun narrowly ahead of Gluesenkamp Perez, 48% to 47%, among likely and undecided voters. The differing — and fast-changing — outlooks underscore the stakes for an incumbent who faces discontent from her Democratic base in a district that flipped blue just four years ago and may help determine how much ground Democrats claim in the U.S. House.
Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun face a similar challenge of keeping their party's base on board while appealing to independents and voters willing to cross party lines. It's a difficult balancing act. Braun is trying to woo back Republicans who have voted for the Democrat in recent elections. In interviews with The Seattle Times, some of these conservatives are open to that, but some are sticking with Gluesenkamp Perez.
The two-term incumbent has made bucking her party a hallmark of her time in Congress — and a central pitch for a third term to represent Washington's 3rd Congressional District.
This year, she joined Republicans in passing a spending package that included the Department of Homeland Security, as other Democrats withheld their votes in protest of the immigration enforcement tactics roiling Minneapolis. She also broke with Democrats to pass a $1.15 trillion defense bill, and recently helped Republicans advance a slate of bills to a final vote. Each instance drew ire from many of her Democratic voters.
Gluesenkamp Perez argues her votes reflect loyalty to Southwest Washington, independence from Washington, D.C., and a pragmatic calculus. These values, she says, supersede the party line.
Her critics see something else: A Democrat alienating her base in pursuit of independents and Republicans. In roughly a dozen conversations with Democratic and progressive voters, they say they feel betrayed and increasingly question what distinguishes Gluesenkamp Perez from a Republican.
The tension reflects the broader challenge facing incumbents in swing districts: The independence that can help them win voters across party lines can also erode support among their own base. In Southwest Washington, that divide is forcing progressives to weigh whether supporting Gluesenkamp Perez is worth comprising their principles — or whether withholding their votes could pressure Democrats to move left, even if it helps elect Braun.
Hennrich, the progressive who challenged Gluesenkamp Perez in the primary, says he won't vote for her in the general and wants her out of office. He plans to use the write-in option on the ballot, though he has not disclosed whom he will write in.
Some plan to leave the congressional candidate choice blank on the ballot. Others will begrudgingly vote for Gluesenkamp Perez. Some are still deciding.
This year's midterm election is widely forecast to favor Democrats. But these voters' choices are critical in a district that has twice sent the incumbent to the Capitol with extraordinarily slim winning margins against her previous far-right challenger Joe Kent: roughly 1% in 2022 and 4% in 2024.
Sitting near the Vancouver waterfront, Mushkin sighed as she considered the stakes. She is unhappy, but knows she will vote for the incumbent.
“Because I don’t want Braun to win," Mushkin said. "Up until the last few years, this has been a red district."
Frazier turned back to the sunset. "Well, apparently I'm voting for Gluesenkamp Perez."
Some Democrats say they've had enough
Thea Zahn, 31, and Kai Richelieu, 28, reached a different conclusion. Over dinner at a downtown Vancouver restaurant, they said they won’t vote for Gluesenkamp Perez in November.
“If I were to be very reductive, I would say the only difference between Gluesenkamp Perez and John Braun is women's reproductive freedom,” Richelieu said. “So, sure, Gluesenkamp Perez is better. The bar is beneath the earth.”
Zahn grew up in Cowlitz County, where she watched swaths of forests disappear as timber companies cut down trees with little oversight, she said — the first seed that bloomed into her progressive politics she would later bring to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign as a volunteer. She unsuccessfully ran for the state Legislature in 2020 and, two years later, became chair of the 20th Legislative District Democrats, which endorsed Gluesenkamp Perez’s primary challenger earlier this year.
Richelieu, a lifelong Vancouver resident, calls the 2016 presidential election his “wake-up year.” He has since moved further left, he said. Both of his parents have disabilities, and he has witnessed the cost of their medical care jump by thousands of dollars in recent years, he said. Despite having a good job in Portland — as an electrical engineer consultant — he doubts whether retirement is a possibility, and worries about whether he can afford any future medical expenses.
Gluesenkamp Perez captured their votes in November 2022, when she was an unknown auto shop owner running as a pragmatic Democrat focused on abortion rights, right-to-repair legislation and support for domestic manufacturing.
“At the time it was like, a blue collar Democrat in a historically red district, or Joe Kent,” Richelieu said. Voting for Gluesenkamp Perez was a “no-brainer,” he said.
“I didn't really buy her blue collar front, it felt performative,” Zahn said. “But at the time, it was clear-cut: Vote for what seemed to be your average sort of establishment Democrat with folksy trappings.”
They weren’t enthusiastic but they agreed she was the logical choice.
Then came the student loan debate.
About a year-and-a-half into her first term, Gluesenkamp Perez voted with House Republicans on a bill to repeal President Joe Biden’s student loan relief. She has said student debt forgiveness must be coupled with investments in career and technical education — investments she argues would have greater impact in her district.
“That was a big no for me,” Richelieu said. It was for many others, as well: Much of her base was outraged, flooding her town halls and leaving furious reviews for her auto shop.
By November 2024, Richelieu and Zahn's lukewarm support spiraled into outright disappointment. Still, they stuck with Gluesenkamp Perez.
“She’s only gotten worse,” Zahn said, shaking her head and sipping a soda.
Zahn said she has written letters to Gluesenkamp Perez’s office, and attended two of her town halls last summer. At one in Lewis County, she said, frustration filled the room. At another in Clark County, Democrats chanted, "vote her out."
Their grievances have continued to mount, from her support for restrictions on how public schools address gender identity to her vote for this year's National Defense Authorization Act, making her one of a handful of Democrats to back it.
Gluesenkamp Perez recently told The Times that the divide with dissatisfied Democrats is “a difference in strategy and not values.” She pointed to Democrats' decisions to withhold votes on Homeland Security funding without securing the reforms they sought.
“If you want somebody that's fighting for and pushing for improvements and reform, we're on the same team,” she said.
She has said she voted for the SAVE Act to affirm existing law prohibiting noncitizens from voting in elections, and strongly supports mail-in voting. She supported a bill requiring schools to obtain parental consent for changing students' pronouns, saying parents shouldn't "be cut out of the loop." She voted for the defense bill, citing other provisions she said would benefit service members and domestic manufacturing.
Richelieu and Zahn remain unconvinced.
“She seems to vote with Republicans for really important ones,” Richelieu said. “She breaks that line very consistently.”
They backed the progressive challenger in the August primary and volunteered for his campaign. Come November, neither will cast a vote at all for the U.S. House representative.
“At a certain point, how many times do I have to tell Gluesenkamp Perez, I'm not going to vote for you if you do this, and she does it?" Richelieu said. How many times does that have to happen until I stop voting for her?”
He knows the counterargument that withholding his vote could help elect a Republican. “I think that is a fear tactic by establishment Democrats.” He paused over his meal. “I feel like electoralism has failed.”
Zahn pushed back, pointing to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. Democrats, she said, too often blame progressives for losses instead of asking whether they gave voters enough reason to turn out.
Withholding their votes, they said, may push their leaders left.
Others aren't ready to give up the seat
Back at the Vancouver waterfront, Anastasia Schaadhardt, 30, watched her nephews zoom around a water park from under the shade of a wide-brimmed hat.
She voted for Hennrich in the primary, too, but plans on voting for Gluesenkamp Perez for a third time next month.
“My wife has contacted her office on trans rights,” she said. “We’re very disappointed but we feel like we can continue pushing her on that. And she does vote with Democrats the majority of the time.”
Schaadhardt grew up in Clark County, and much has changed in recent years. The population has surged, driven by an exodus from Portland and California seeking a lower cost of living. The waterfront she sat at sprang to life with new development, and the downtown area began bustling with new apartments and restaurants. Some of the roads thinned, making way for biking and walking.
“The area has gotten more blue. It’s gotten so much bigger,” Schaadhardt said. “A lot of that population, it’s all in Vancouver.”
And now, the politics are changing, too, she said, recalling when a Republican represented the district. But Schaadhardt sees the shift differently from Zahn and Richelieu.
“We’ve made a lot of progress just by getting Gluesenkamp Perez in the position. I’d be a lot less happy if a Republican was in the role,” she said.
For Schaadhardt, the choice is not about whether the Democrat has disappointed her, but what comes next if she loses.
“If we’re all purists, then we’re going to get someone like John Braun elected. Then nobody is going to be happy.”
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