NAPAVINE — With the whole country seemingly freaking out over the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez campaigned recently at a small-town diner, talking about the importance of shop classes in junior high and fresh fruit at daycares.
The first-term Democrat is running against Republican challenger Joe Kent, the Trump-endorsed Green Beret veteran she narrowly beat two years ago in one of the biggest upsets of the midterm election.
The race that will help determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives offers voters in Southwest Washington a stark ideological choice. Gluesenkamp Perez co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition of centrist rural Democrats. If elected, Kent says he'd join the House Freedom Caucus, the most conservative bloc of the House GOP.
Kent frames the nationally watched rematch, which has drawn more than $30 million in campaign spending, as a partisan brawl on big issues like immigration and foreign wars, and cultural fights over transgender women in sports. He joined House Speaker Mike Johnson at a recent rally in Ridgefield to boast about the prospect of total Republican control of Congress and the White House.
On Tuesday night, Trump called in to a telephone rally in support of Kent, recalling meeting him in 2019 after his wife, Navy cryptologist Shannon Kent, was killed in a terrorist attack in Syria. Trump praised Joe Kent as "a real fighter, a real hero" who would "help me with stopping the terrible migrant crime that is pouring into our neighborhoods."
"We need to flip this seat so that we can actually pursue President Trump's agenda," Kent said, including "getting us out of these needless and endless wars."
For Gluesenkamp Perez, there have been no such rallies with Harris or other big-name Democrats in the closing weeks of the race. Seeking reelection in the Republican-leaning Third Congressional District, she won't even say publicly whether she voted for Harris.
Instead, she has tried to steer the conversation away from national hot-button topics and toward local concerns and bipartisan cooperation.
In late October, Gluesenkamp Perez piled into an RV with her husband, Dean, their 3-year-old son, and Uma Furman, the family's dog, for a 22-stop, seven-county tour, meeting with small groups of voters at coffee shops and senior centers.
At those gatherings, Gluesenkamp Perez, who owns an auto repair shop with her husband, talked about restoring shop classes in junior high schools to build up the trades. And she repeated a story about peeling bananas.
Gluesenkamp Perez said a woman running a daycare told her about getting barred from peeling apples or bananas or other fruits and vegetables to serve to kids because of regulations that would have required her to install more sinks. The same rules didn't apply to opening bags of potato chips or other junk food.
In response, Gluesenkamp Perez introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican. She calls it the "Banana Bill," but it was officially dubbed the "Cutting Red Tape on Child Care Providers Act." The proposal, which has not yet had a hearing, would prohibit states from creating "any barriers on the simple preparation of fresh fruits and vegetables" at licensed child care facilities.
It's an example, Gluesenkamp Perez says, of commonsense work that most people want from Congress.
"I think 90% of Americans agree about 90% of the issues, but the only thing that gets oxygen is the 10% we don't agree about," she told the handful of locals at a chat at the Napavine Diner, where choke points on local roads and the closure of a local Veterans Affairs clinic dominated the discussion.
"They want us to feel small. They want to get us wrapped around the axles around these big culture war issues. And I think it's pretty damn important if you can peel a banana or not for children," she said.
Earlier that day, at a Centralia coffee shop, she drew a link between those seemingly small-bore solutions and broader problems facing America — including misinformation spread by foreign actors.
"The reason that misinformation and foreign interference works is because so much of the dialogue is these national issues. A foreign adversary can't come in and talk with authority about the Chehalis River flooding. They can't talk about sea lions on the Columbia," she said.
Whether out of conviction or political self-preservation, Gluesenkamp Perez has staked out one of the most bipartisan voting records among House Democrats, according to an analysis by the Lugar Center at Georgetown University. Some of those stances have drawn protests from Democratic constituents, including her vote as one of only two House Democrats to oppose Biden's student debt relief plan, saying it didn't do anything for the majority of people in her district, who don't have college degrees.
On her RV tour, Gluesenkamp Perez sounded at times like a rural Republican legislator. She said she attends a regular Bible study with GOP lawmakers "because I need more Jesus, not because I need more politics."
Her stump speech is full of quips about out-of-touch D.C. politicians and bureaucrats.
"It feels like everybody there has a trust fund and a law degree," she says.
And: "My mom is from Forks, Wash., which people in D.C. think is something to the left of your dinner plate."
And: "I was looking at this expert panel of witnesses, and every one of them was wearing a bow tie. And I'm like, have any of you turned a wrench?"
Anita O'Rourke, a supporter who attended Gluesenkamp's Centralia coffee shop event, said she gets why the Democratic congresswoman is talking about local issues instead of the Harris-Walz ticket.
"If she is going to pull in all those folks that are worried about logging, worried about farmers, then saying 'Kamala Kamala Kamala' is not going to get you that," she said.
Gluesenkamp Perez couldn't wholly escape the divisive debate over transgender people participating in school sports — an issue that is the subject of Trump and Kent TV ads attacking Democrats.
In Napavine, a man asked why she voted against a House Republican bill to ban transgender students from playing on women's sports teams. "I would really like to hear the answer because I have granddaughters," he said.
Gluesenkamp Perez said she was against the bill because it was "a dumpster fire" that would have opened the door to genital exams of schoolkids. She said she's "libertarian" on the matter, which is best left to local school districts. "The federal government is not going to come in and make this better," she argued.
Kent argues Gluesenkamp Perez's centrist positioning is for show, citing such votes. He says she has stood solidly with party bosses on the important fights and that she would help make New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries the next House speaker if the Democrats win back a majority.
In 2022, Gluesenkamp Perez defeated Kent by just 2,629 votes, as some Republicans publicly backed her, saying Kent was too extreme and would give short shrift to local concerns in favor of divisive national fights.
That split came in part from supporters of then-Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, whom Kent ousted in the primary after her vote to impeach Trump over his role in stoking the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Kent embraced Trump's false claims about the 2020 election results and called people charged in the attack "political prisoners" — even suggesting the whole thing was an FBI setup. He also called for defunding the FBI.
Kent has pivoted this year on abortion, an issue that has hurt Republicans in many races since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision two years ago striking down Roe v. Wade and eliminating federal abortion rights protections. Thirteen states have since imposed total abortion bans.
Kent previously backed a federal abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. He now pledges he will not vote for a ban if elected, saying the issue should be left to states — a stance that has been adopted by other Republicans in tough congressional races.
Gluesenkamp Perez favors restoring abortion rights nationally by codifying Roe v. Wade.
On other subjects, Kent has done little to moderate his positions or talk about bipartisan cooperation.
At a recent forum in Ilwaco, Pacific County, he stood by his absolute opposition to gun restrictions, saying the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to own any weapon — even tactical nuclear weapons — to keep the government in check.
"I believe that's what the founders intended," Kent confirmed in a separate interview before a campaign stop at a Camas bar. "We've got enough gun laws right now, and I'd say all of them are infringements."
At the Camas, Clark County, appearance, Kent was asked by a man who described himself as an undecided voter married to an immigrant who is now a U.S. citizen about "scary" rhetoric coming from Republicans about immigration.
"Well, the issue is illegal immigration," Kent said, standing by Trump's plans for mass deportations of millions of people, an effort he said could be carried out chiefly by removing all financial incentives, like jobs and public benefits, for people to stay in America.
The U.S. government should play "hardball," he said, with states like Washington that have adopted "sanctuary" laws to prevent local police from cooperating in deportation efforts.
"If you do that, you're not getting federal funding — for anything," he said.
Overall, Kent wants to slash the discretionary federal budget by more than half, saying the country's $35 trillion debt is hurtling it toward financial collapse. He said he'd vote against omnibus spending bills, even if they contain money for local projects, and would oppose the continuing resolutions that have helped stave off government shutdowns.
Kent supports limiting federal spending to what gets taken in each year in taxes, covering Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits up front but putting everything else on the table.
"That's going to force us to make some really, really serious cuts to the federal government," he said.
Unlike two years ago, when the Third District race was a comparatively low-spending sleeper, Democratic and Republican groups this year are pouring tens of millions of dollars into the district.
Gluesenkamp Perez has outraised Kent, pulling in about $11.6 million to his $6 million — including money raised by the campaigns and closely allied "Victory Funds," which can accept larger donations.
Outside Democratic-allied groups have poured more than $10 million into the race in support of Gluesenkamp Perez, compared with more than $6 million for Republicans backing Kent, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks political spending.
Polls show the race neck and neck. Both Kent and Gluesenkamp Perez say the race is winnable but have cautioned supporters it's too close to take anything for granted.
State GOP Chair Jim Walsh predicts the outcome will be different this year in the Third District contest, with Trump actually on the ballot and boosting Republican turnout. He pointed to a recent GOP event in which Herrera Beutler, who is running for lands commissioner, campaigned alongside Kent, who has endorsed her in that race.
"The conservatives are much more unified" than they were two years ago, Walsh said.
At the end of her RV tour, after talking with volunteers in the retiree community of Ryderwood in Cowlitz County, Gluesenkamp Perez said she's worked hard to campaign on a record that matches her purple district, not the latest partisan controversy dominating MSNBC or Fox News.
"It's like we're shouting into a void sometimes," she said. "But nobody else is going to do that, and it really matters to my community, and it's what matters to me."
___
(c)2024 The Seattle Times
Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
