While everyone watched the drama on the Republican side, where Joe Kent knocked off Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the primary after she had the good sense to impeach Trump twice, a little-known Democrat with no previous political experience set about winning in a district that Donald Trump had won twice. No one gave her much of a chance, but that didn't matter. Bolstered by the Unions, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work winning in rural Washington State.
Source: Seattle Times
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto shop owner who was a virtual unknown before August’s primary election, pulled off perhaps the most stunning political upset in the country this year, winning a congressional seat in Southwest Washington that few saw as competitive.
Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, defeated Donald Trump-endorsed Republican Joe Kent in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, with roughly 50.5% of the vote Saturday.
The latest ballot count Saturday in Clark County put Gluesenkamp Perez’s lead over Kent, an Army Special Forces veteran, at more than 4,600 votes, with an estimated 15,000 or fewer votes remaining. She had led since election night, but Kent narrowed the gap greatly in later counts.
The Seattle Times projects Gluesenkamp Perez as the winner, as an analysis shows Kent would need 73% of the remaining votes to catch up.
And how much of an upset?
Kent had appeared confident of victory after the August primary, declaring the district to be “deep red MAGA country.”
Kent’s loss was another stinging defeat for a Trump-endorsed candidate in the midterm elections and provided Democrats with a surprise House seat pickup in a year in which the party was mostly playing defense.
Before the election, the political news site FiveThirtyEight had predicted Kent had a 98% chance of winning, but there had been little polling in the race.
Apparently, WA-03 is not "MAGA country" after all.
Ted Lieu with the fist pump.
She beat the odds - and then some.
