As Third Congressional District candidates U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, the Democratic incumbent, and Joe Kent, her Republican challenger, prepare to face each other in a debate at Lower Columbia College Wednesday, national congressional campaign committees for each party have unveiled their latest ads attacking the other side.
The ads, announced in separate statements Tuesday, aren’t authorized by a candidate or candidate’s committee. However, they hit on many of the same themes as the candidate’s official campaign materials.
According to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the organization has reserved more than $45 million in ad space in 29 media markets across the country, including more than $6 million in the Portland media market.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), meanwhile, reserved $55 million in advertising space in media markets throughout the country through two rounds of ad buys this summer, including $6.6 million in ad space in the Portland media market.
The NRCC ad, titled “Grandson,” features a man identified as a Chehalis resident named Mark and appears to have been shot on the Willapa Hills State Park Trail outside of Chehalis.
In the ad, Mark describes the pain of losing his 22-year-old grandson to fentanyl.
“The last words that I had with him, I said ‘I love you, Bubba.’ He said ‘I love you too, papa.’ And that was the last time we spoke. He was 22 years old, just a kid,” Mark says. “That’s what fentanyl took away from me.”
Like the first ad the NRCC released this election cycle, the new ad attacks Gluesenkamp Perez for comments she made in March 2023 when she said, “Nobody stays awake at night worrying about the Southern border.”
“Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said she’s not worried about the border while the flood of fentanyl is killing kids,” Mark says. “That’s real people, with real names, with real loved ones, and they’re gone because you’re not willing to take the problem seriously.”
In the ad, Mark said he would not vote for Gluesenkamp Perez in the upcoming election.
The DNCC ad, titled “Infuriating,” features an unidentified woman criticizing Kent for comments he made ahead of the 2022 election where he said, “I don’t think you should be able to get an abortion.”
“I was raped as a child. The trauma never goes away,” the woman says. “As a victim, it’s infuriating that Joe Kent would force girls to carry their rapists’ child. Joe Kent wants to ban abortion without exception.”
In the ad, the woman says that an attempt to implement an abortion ban is “dangerous, and it’s absolutely disgusting.”
The ad concludes with a message that Kent is “too dangerous for Southwest Washington.”
The new ads come a day before the candidates will face off in a debate at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Rose Center for the Arts at Lower Columbia College in Longview. The debate will last 90 minutes and will be televised on KLTV.
For more information on the debate, or to submit a question, visit https://www.cowlitzcivildialogue.com/.
Polling from the Northwest Progressive Institute in June found that Kent and Gluesenkamp Perez were “effectively tied” in their rematch of the 2022 election, with Kent at 46% support compared to Gluesenkamp Perez’s 45%. The poll of 649 likely voters, conducted between June 11 and 12, had a margin of error of 3.9%.
