Primary fight underway in 3rd Congressional DistrictSubscriber Exclusive

There is no real starting point, no formal “ready, set, go” to mark Southwest Washington’s primary election season. But judging from the energy at 3rd Congressional District hopeful Brent Hennrich’s campaign kickoff event last week, the race toward the Aug. 4 primary election is already well underway. Hennrich is a 46-year-old married father of four who has lived in the Portland-Vancouver metro area his entire life and spent his career in the movie theater business. The Democratic candidate hopes 3rd District voters will help him edge out another Democrat, two-term Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Skamania, in the August primary. “I believe that Marie has let people down,” Hennrich said Friday. “She touts a bipartisan record, but that’s because she votes with Democrats to say, ‘This bill is no good; send it back to (committee),’ but then votes with Republicans for that bill.” Hennrich dropped out of the 2022 3rd District race ahead of the primary to give Perez a better chance of making it into the top two spots in a race that included two strong Republican candidates: incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and challenger Joe Kent. In Washington, voters do not have to declare a party affiliation to vote in the primary. Hennrich said he believes the November general election ballot will have either Perez or him facing a Republican candidate, likely Washington state Senate Minority Leader John Braun of Centralia, who announced his congressional campaign in August. “I feel good about the top-two primary,” said Hennrich, who has lived in Vancouver’s Marrion neighborhood since 2009. “I do believe Braun will stay in, but that allows us on the Democrat side to have a healthy primary.” Supporters who packed the bar inside Vancouver’s AMC Mill Plain 8 movie theater for Hennrich’s event shared this outlook. All of the people who spoke to The Columbian said they had voted for Perez in the past but had become disheartened by their congressional representative’s tendency to vote against her own party and to back Republican-led legislation like the SAVE Act and a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that supports raids by federal immigration enforcement. “I am making it my personal mission to make sure she never goes to Washington (D.C.) again,” Battle Ground resident Allyson Pate said. Pate, who voted for Perez in 2022, has since been to 17 protests against the 3rd District representative. “The last one was in Battle Ground, and people are mad,” Pate said. “She has just decided that she can do whatever she wants and that she doesn’t have to represent us.” Pate said Hennrich’s campaign priorities match her own: adopting universal health care, protecting education, fighting the housing crisis, regulating artificial intelligence, supporting unions, having a peace-first foreign policy and restoring women’s right to choose when it comes to reproductive health care. “He represents everything I believe in,” Pate said. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why all these people are here.” Vancouver residents Ivan and Kathy Papp shared similar thoughts. The couple moved to Clark County two years ago from Richland and said they didn’t know much about the 3rd District congressional candidates. At that time, Perez was running her second race against Republican candidate Joe Kent. Perez beat Kent in 2022 and 2024, but the Yacolt Republican soon moved into a prominent federal role after President Donald Trump picked Kent in 2025 to lead the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. Kent resigned from that position in March and said he did not support the Trump administration’s war with Iran. Kent still owns his house in Yacolt but hasn’t indicated any interest in another run at the 3rd District seat. He could not be reached for comment. “When we first moved here, we didn’t know who to vote for, so we took the advice of the Democratic Party,” Ivan Papp said. “We feel like we were let down by that advice.” The couple ticked off the reasons why they no longer can support Perez. “Voting with the Republicans, funding ICE, the SAVE Act and, I mean, she wants to fund shooting sea lions. I mean, that’s just insane,” Ivan Papp said. “So, we started doing our research, and Brent stands for all of the things we stand for.” The Papps question Perez’s ability to win a third term in the 3rd District. “I don’t know how much of a chance Marie has to win the Democratic vote,” Ivan Papp said. Battle Ground resident Carlie Myers and her wife, Tanya Patino, also turned their attention toward Hennrich after initially voting for Perez in 2024. “She was better than Joe Kent,” Myers said. “And Joe Kent scared the (expletive) out of me.” The couple said they were upset by Perez’s initial support of the SAVE Act, which would make it harder for people without passports — as well as people whose legal names do not match the name on their birth certificate, including many married women, transgender people and anyone who has had a name change — to cast a vote. Myers also cited Perez’s failed commitment to the Chinook Indian Nation to introduce the Chinook Indian Nation Restoration Act of 2024. “She was going to help them, but as soon as she got into office, she was like, ‘Just kidding. It’s too hard,’ and she walked away from a group of people who helped put her in office, which I thought was a huge betrayal,” Myers said. Perez’s outreach The day before Hennrich’s campaign kickoff, Perez’s office sent out a news release detailing the representative’s most recent meetings with dairy farmers and small-business owners in the 3rd District, where she discussed the FARM Act legislation she sponsored to help small meat and poultry processors. Perez also met recently with officials from Pacific and Wahkiakum counties during a tour of potential sites for the Upper Grays River Community Forest and talked about ways to keep local forests under local ownership. Perez has secured $500,000 in federal funds for the community forest. “There are gates going up to prevent people from being able to access forests that they’ve hunted in for generations. I’m proud of this group that is working to perpetuate these lands,” she said in the news release. Perez also made stops in Clark County, where the majority voted for her in 2022 and 2024, meeting with students and educators in Vancouver to tour a construction trades program at Hudson’s Bay High School and visiting the Northwest Line Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee’s training center in Battle Ground. ‘Isn’t really a Democrat’ Despite Perez’s visits throughout the 3rd Congressional District and her success securing federal dollars for regional projects, dozens of people present at Hennrich’s campaign kickoff used the word “betrayed” to describe how they felt about Perez regularly voting with Republicans. Many said they wanted to vote for a Democratic candidate who would fight Trump’s growing authoritarianism. LaDonna Kirkpatrick, chair of the 18th Legislative District Democrats, helped introduce Hennrich to his crowd of supporters. “I truly believe we need somebody who will represent Democratic values, not just in words, but in actions,” Kirkpatrick said. “Someone who will fight for the working families, defend human rights and stand up to extremism whenever it shows up. Someone who will hold this administration accountable and not enable it.” Another prominent Clark County Democrat, Clark County Councilor Wil Fuentes, also spoke during Hennrich’s campaign kickoff event. “I’ll be real with you: Right now, we have a representative in the 3rd District that isn’t really a Democrat,” Fuentes said, prompting the audience to applaud. “We want a candidate who won’t fold when it truly matters, and I believe we can win this district without compromising our values.”

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