As Democrats aim to take back the U.S. House of Representatives, Southwest Washington’s 3rd Congressional District is in the spotlight. The two-term incumbent, Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, is defending her seat in one of the closest U.S. House races in the country. Her opponent, Republican state Sen. John Braun, has the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
The independence of this swing district has roots in an urban-rural divide and a heritage of logging on large tracts of public lands. It includes Washington’s fourth-largest city, Vancouver, coastal towns that depend on the seafood and tourism industries, the counties of Lewis, Pacific, Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clark and Skamania, and a small portion of southern Thurston County.
Addressing affordability
On a Saturday morning in October at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds in Centralia, Gluesenkamp Perez toured booths and talked with constituents during a Repair and Sustainability event while she waited to get some knives and scissors sharpened and got tips on the best techniques for using Dremel tools to sharpen items at home.
The "right to repair” is a signature issue for Gluesenkamp Perez, who said it has been a central legislative priority for her since she launched her first congressional campaign four years ago and flipped the district. And it was one of the main reasons she decided to run for office.
“Having things that are worth fixing, that are repairable themselves, like, saves thousands of dollars for a normal household,” she said. “And we're seeing this really strong acceleration in planned obsolescence and just cheap crap.”
“The middle class is hemorrhaging money” because corporations try to force people to buy new things, instead of fixing them, Gluesenkamp Perez said. For her, the right to repair is about personal property rights, antitrust issues and keeping skilled trades alive. It is a bipartisan initiative that all kinds of people in her district care about, she said, and it is a big piece of her background; she and her husband own an auto repair and machine shop.
Gluesenkamp Perez described the people she wants to serve through right to repair efforts as those who are "trying to keep their 2003 Toyota Corolla going."
“Making things that last," she said. "That's how people have, you know, the ability to like, own a home and like, work one job and see their kids at night."
The candidates agree that in this district, as in many parts of the state and the country, affordability is a major issue. But they differ on the root causes of the high cost of living and how to address it.
During their last televised debate, Gluesenkamp Perez said the main thing driving up costs is the war in Iran.
“It's making fuel prices spike. We're hearing from people all across the community, whether you're logging, running a farm, just trying to get to work. This war has been a disaster,” she said. “The administration has failed to articulate a clear goal or a strategy to achieve it, and I've voted against that six times. That's a huge piece of the cost of living.”
Braun has not voiced clear opposition to the war in Iran. A Navy veteran, he is a fiscal conservative and the Republican minority leader in the state Senate. He won Trump's backing in April. Braun said domestic policies are to blame for rising gas and energy prices.
“There are only really a few big things you can do at the national level: taxes,” he said during that same debate. “And we've made some progress in the last year and a half to get taxes lower, competitive, stable. We have more work to do there, but I think we're on a good track. My opponent voted against that.”
Braun was referring to tax cuts in the Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill.” On energy, he said he supports the administration’s “all-of-the-above strategy” to bring back fossil fuels: “This is the way to get prices down over the long term. That affects the price of everything we've talked about."
In an industrial park overlooking I-5 in Chehalis, Braun offered a quick tour of his family business, where he has served as president since 2006.
Braun Northwest manufactures custom-made emergency vehicles like ambulances and rescue trucks. It employs about 335 people.
Braun said many of the materials used to manufacture these vehicles have been subject to the Trump administration’s tariffs. He estimates the extra cost to his business for things like aluminum at $2.5 million this year alone.
“Tariffs is a big problem," Braun said. "This is a place where I've disagreed with the administration. I think they got the problem statement right. We need to bring more manufacturing back to our country, that's a problem that we've gotten wrong for several decades, I think. I don't think, you know, tariffs are the right answer to that.”
He said the extra cost gets passed on to customers, which are mainly small cities and fire departments in the American West.
Braun said talking with his employees has kept him grounded and in touch with working people while serving as a part-time lawmaker for the past 14 years.
“We are very much a blue-collar organization. We build things for a living,” he said. “When I'm here and I get a chance to talk to people about not just their challenges here, but their challenges in their daily lives, for them, their families, it just — it's a great way to connect to just regular Washingtonians, trying to make their way in our state.”
A lot in common
This emphasis on working people is something both candidates maintain. It is striking how much they appear to agree on: Gluesenkamp Perez shares Braun’s critique of Trump’s tariffs. Both are concerned about data centers and ensuring they don’t take advantage of rural communities. Both said Congress needs to take back its constitutional powers over spending and war and stop ceding those powers to the executive branch. And when it comes to the huge tracts of public lands in the 3rd District, both said they support more logging to help the local timber industry, provide more public access and reduce wildfire risks.
Braun said he supports the lifting of the Clinton-era roadless rule that protects about a third of national forest lands in the United States, and about 2 million acres in Washington.
“I think we should be more aggressive in a sustainable harvest of our national forest,” Braun said, adding that he thinks it should be done “thoughtfully,” with the aim of providing multiple positive outcomes, such as employment and wildfire management. “It could potentially provide revenue to local governments to help them be more successful. And we should do it — the federal government should do it in coordination with local governments.”
Gluesenkamp Perez said she is “still looking at” the lifting of the roadless rule. She wants local timber mills to have more work. And she is not opposed to more intensive use of public lands.
“It depends on how it actually comes down. There's a lot of skepticism that these changes will actually operate to the benefit of normal people and not like special interests,” she said. “Hopefully, we'll have more of a balance in the next Congress and be able to exercise more oversight of what they're doing.”
Campaigning in a purple district
The stark political divide between urban and rural areas in southwest Washington requires politicians in the 3rd District to walk a tight line to get elected.
Gluesenkamp Perez is not a garden-variety Democrat; she often breaks with her own party, most recently on the Republican-backed SAVE Act, which, if passed, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
But when she flipped the district four years ago, her opponent was the ultra-right-wing candidate Joe Kent, who she went on to beat again in 2024.
The district went for Trump in the presidential elections in 2020 and 2024. Winning it requires candidates to attract the independent swing voters in the middle. And this year’s election is a true toss-up, with polls statistically tied.
Michael Blumm, a professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, said that compared to a firebrand like Kent, Braun is a more mainstream — almost moderate — Republican.
“I think it's a smarter move on the part of the Republican Party to have somebody like him, rather than somebody like Kent, who would turn off people,” Blumm said. “And that makes him a more formidable player in this than Kent was.”
The race has attracted more than $20 million in campaign spending. This is especially apparent in recent ads, with sparks flying between the candidates. Controversy about the workplace safety record at Braun’s business came to light after an attack ad from the Gluesenkamp Perez campaign and a counter attack from Braun; coverage of this made it into The Washington Post. More than half of that money has come from outside groups, an indication of how much is at stake as Democrats try to defend this seat and win control of the U.S. House.
