With new ballot counts released Friday night, Gluesenkamp Perez had 51 percent of the vote to Kent’s 49 percent. While Kent gained some ground, the final tally wasn’t enough to put him on a path to overtake her, as he still trails by nearly 5,000 votes. If the trend continues, Democrats will score another midterm victory over a Donald Trump-backed candidate who has proven unpopular with voters in a moderate-to-conservative district. Kent would need 61 percent of the estimated remaining votes to close the gap, according to a Seattle Times analysis of polling data. More ballots will be counted Saturday in Clark County, where most of the remaining votes are located, favoring Democrats. The unexpected nail-biter — a race barely on the national radar a few weeks ago — has more recently raised hopes among Democrats that they could pull off a surprise House upset in the Republican-leaning district. In a statement Friday night, Gluesenkamp Perez political adviser Sandeep Kaushik welcomed the new totals, saying Kent “once again fell short of the gains he needed to change the outcome of this race.” He added: “It is clear that voters in the 3rd Congressional District are choosing Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s approach of moderation and pragmatism over Joe Kent’s toxic politics of extremism and division.” Asked if Kent’s campaign had any comment on the latest numbers, Kent’s campaign manager Ozzie Gonzalez replied in a text message: “No.” Kent earlier in the day appeared on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast, urging supporters to make sure their ballots were accepted. He said the campaign had teams ready to “curate” contested ballots that have been challenged, adding, “We’re already lawyers for the fight ahead of us.” Incumbent U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, was ousted in the August primary by Republican voters angered by her vote to impeach Trump after the Capitol attack last year by a mob of his supporters. That left Kent, who had Trump’s endorsement and plenty of Fox News and other media exposure, to face Gluesenkamp Perez, a virtually unknown candidate just a few months ago. The general election race had been viewed by national analysts as a possible easy win for Republicans in the general election. But Kent’s far-right views, ties to white supremacists and espousing false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election helped open the door for Democrats to make the race competitive. After the primary, some prominent Republicans publicly endorsed Gluesenkamp Perez, who also has outpolled Kent in recent months and garnered some independent spending from Democratic groups. Still, Kent remained officially endorsed by the state Republican Party, as well as county GOP organizations, and his campaign advisers said they were confident few Republicans would defect to support a Democrat with control of the House at stake. Kent, an Army Special Forces veteran, ran as a staunch MAGA Republican, promising that if elected he would avoid working with establishment Democrats and Republicans. He said his priorities include impeaching President Joe Biden, opening an FBI investigation and barring nearly all immigration to the US. Gluesenkamp Perez, who co-owns an auto repair shop with her husband, has tried to distance herself from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party by emphasizing her small business experience and rural roots in ads that show her cutting down a tree with a chainsaw . Seattle Times staff reporter Manuel Villa contributed to this report.
