By Payton May
VANCOUVER, Wash. — In a lumber town, home to just under 300 people, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez spoke before residents at a candidate forum at the Grays River Grange, a local chapter of a historic farmers association. It was one of 23 events the Southwest Washington Democrat made on her “Freedom to Fix $#*%” RV tour just two weeks out from Election Day.
It was the first time in more than 50 years that a sitting member of Congress had attended the forum.
Standing in a century-old farmhouse below a framed picture of George Washington on Oct. 22, Gluesenkamp Pérez spoke to the assembled crowd about housing and the fishing economy. If not for her title, the then-freshman congresswoman could have been mistaken for an attendee, blending in with her tan work jacket and cowboy boots.
The Blue Dog Democrat from Skamania County was fighting for her seat in Washington’s sprawling 3rd District, made up of seven mostly rural counties where nearly half the land is covered in forests.
She went to win reelection and has continued forging a more independent path alongside colleagues such as Maine’s Jared Golden; they are among the 13 House Democrats elected from districts that preferred Donald Trump last year.
Gluesenkamp Pérez jumped onto the political scene in 2022, when she won the district by fewer than 3,000 votes — less than 1 percentage point — in an upset against Trump-backed Republican Joe Kent.
She beat Kent in November’s rematch by nearly 4 points. Kent, an Army veteran, has since been nominated to be director of the National Counterterrorism Center under Trump.
Gluesenkamp Pérez, who owns an auto body and repair shop with her husband, frequently touts the importance of vocational school and the trades — despite attending Reed College in Portland, a leading liberal arts school. She’s also a strong advocate for the timber and agriculture industries, responsible for employing many constituents in the district’s most isolated areas.
Her commitment to working-class individuals is what earned her farmer Maureen Harkcom’s vote.
“I tend to vote Republican most of the time, but I am very pleased with what she has done for us, for our district,” Harkcom said in a phone interview last fall. “She is very supportive of agriculture, which is important to me.”
Harkcom, a past president of the Lewis County Farm Bureau, grew up on a dairy farm in Lewis County and raised beef cattle and hay as an adult.
Harkcom voted for both Trump and Gluesenkamp Pérez, saying she picks the person she feels will serve her best.
She has met with Gluesenkamp Pérez more than a dozen times and was asked to attend the White House’s annual Congressional Ball with the congresswoman in December 2023 to represent Southwest Washington’s agricultural industry.
Harkcom was initially hesitant to say yes after receiving the call on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving but eventually conceded after some persuading by her daughter.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime that people kill for, so yeah, we made it happen,” Harkcom recalled.
In Washington, Gluesenkamp Pérez introduced Harkcom to a number of senators and representatives, including Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, the former chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee who has since retired.
As Harkcom made her way around the room in what she said felt like a “holding corral at a milk parlor,” she was impressed by the respect and praise House members heaped on Gluesenkamp Pérez.
“Every congressman that I met, whether they were Republican or Democrat, everybody I met said something to the effect of, ‘Do you know how lucky you are to have her fighting for Southwest Washington?’” Harkcom said.
As Republicans increased their margins in counties across the country in November, Democrats have thrust Gluesenkamp Pérez into the national spotlight, desperate for answers as to how she won over voters like Harkcom in what many considered a difficult race. (Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rated the race a Toss-up last year; it is rated Tilt Democratic for the 2026 midterms.)
David Nierenberg, an investment manager and major donor to Gluesenkamp Pérez’s campaign, said he believes the answer is simple.
“She listens to people,” Nierenberg said in an interview in November. “She doesn’t talk at people, she doesn’t pontificate. She tends to focus on issues which affect the quality of our lives here in her district, and she’s as willing to disagree with the Democratic Party as she is the Republican Party.”
Nierenberg was once a key GOP donor and the national finance co-chair for both of Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential runs.
Citing what he called her impressive voting record and “thoughtful independence” on national issues such as student debt forgiveness and defense spending, Nierenberg explained that Gluesenkamp Pérez’s ability to address the needs of her constituents allowed her to perform better than Democrats at the top of the ticket.
“People around the country, and not just in rural areas, have a pretty pervasive disappointment with how they’ve been treated over the last four decades by the elites of both parties,” Nierenberg said. “When you’ve got 70 percent of voters feeling worried and uncertain about a variety of things, you’re not going to win elections by running a campaign based on joy.”
(That, of course, was a reference to a consistent theme of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign. Trump carried Gluesenkamp Pérez’s district by 3 points over Harris last year, according to calculations by elections analyst Drew Savicki.)
Gluesenkamp Pérez echoed that sentiment in interviews following her win, telling a local paper that knowing the lived experiences of your community and their everyday struggles is where many establishment Democrats fall flat.
“I think most Americans are really tired of politics. They want people that are loyal to them and that see the world the way they do and are living the same life,” she told The Columbian in November.
While her loyalty to her constituents and occasional breaks from the party line frustrate House Democrats, her moderate stances and bipartisan voting record may have been key to her victory.
Before Gluesenkamp Pérez won in 2022, the district was held by Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was first elected in 2010. Herrera Beutler was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and lost in 2022 in a top-two open primary to Gluesenkamp Pérez and Kent.
“In 2022, [Gluesenkamp Pérez] really does the miraculous,” said Mark Stephan, a professor of political science at Washington State University Vancouver.
He believes the district’s center tilt is what allowed Herrera Beutler to hold her seat for so long and what eventually elected Gluesenkamp Pérez.
Nierenberg, who doesn’t affiliate with either party, was once Herrera Beutler’s biggest volunteer fundraiser. Now, he praises Gluesenkamp Perez’s record of “working across the aisle” in Congress, adding that he considers both women to be “independent thinkers.” (Herrera Beutler attempted a political comeback last year, falling short in her bid to become Washington’s public lands commissioner but drawing more votes than any statewide Republican on the ballot.)
Gluesenkamp Pérez is one of just four House Democrats who voted this month for legislation known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections.
“I do not support noncitizens voting in American elections – and that’s common sense to folks in Southwest Washington,” she said in a statement after the vote. “Voting in our nation’s elections is a sacred right belonging only to American citizens, and my vote for the SAVE Act reflects that principle.”
The move frustrated many Democrats, but her statement stressed that the measure stood “no chance of passage” in the Senate thanks to filibuster rules and the legislation’s “deeply flawed provisions.” She encouraged House leaders “to instead consider bipartisan legislation that can pass both chambers of Congress.”
While the exact number of independents in Washington’s 3rd District is unknown because of the state’s lack of party registration, Stephan believes they make up anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent, based on voter data.
“This is a district that has a fair number of independents, people who are not affiliated with either of the two major parties,” he said. “That used to be even more true, I’d say a decade ago, or two decades ago, than now. Part of what’s changed is that, much like the rest of the country, it’s become very polarized.”
Stephan called Gluesenkamp Pérez and Herrera Beutler “very similar” in their approach to constituents.
“One’s a Democrat, one’s Republican, but the fact is, they both had a very strong local focus to what they were doing,” he said.
For pundits and strategists hoping to find lessons from Gluesenkamp Pérez’s success, her campaign manager, Tim Gowen, said it comes down to the way politicians talk and interact with the communities they represent.
“She has so much fidelity to this place,” Gowen said in a phone interview. “At the end of the day, people are going to respond to who they think is going to help them, and their community, and their neighbors, and their family and their friends, and that’s who they vote for.”
This report is part of Roll Call’s “On the Margins” series, which profiles House districts that will be key to the pursuit of the majority in 2026.
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