The voters who are fed up with Southwest Washington’s battleground Congressional race

For Owen Thornhill in Vancouver, it was the $600 bill he received after getting an MRI for his hurt knee, even though he has health insurance.

For Dale Ford in Naselle, it was not being able to afford health insurance at all despite making almost six figures a year.

And for Rachel Pozgay-Brooks in Chehalis, it’s all the times she’s had to tell her two kids “no” when they ask for a drive to the park, because gas is too expensive.

These three voters are all in Washington’s battleground 3rd Congressional District. They each lean different ways politically, but they’ve all experienced similar everyday challenges that they say have broken their trust in Congress.

In interviews with OPB this month, incumbent Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican state Sen. John Braun both argued they have what it takes to help alleviate the cost pressures facing Southwest Washington residents.

But a poll commissioned by OPB found many voters aren’t happy with either of the candidates in a race that could help determine which party controls the U.S. House.

Nonpartisan firm DHM Research surveyed 543 likely voters in the district — 60% had an overall negative impression of Gluesenkamp Perez, while 47% had negative views of Braun. Almost all the likely voters who took the poll identified the cost of living, the economy and healthcare as important issues, but most of them also said they don’t have confidence in Congress to make progress.

The poll showed Braun and Gluesenkamp Perez in a statistical dead heat, with the Republican holding a two-point advantage that fell well within the poll’s 4.2% margin of error.

Crucially, 36% of likely voters said they had not definitively decided who they’d support. These undecided, and in many cases, dissatisfied voters could determine the outcome.

The 3rd District covers more than 7,000 square miles of rural forests, industrial waterfronts, sprawling suburbs and agricultural valleys. Nearly two-thirds of the population is concentrated in Clark County, where Thornhill lives. The timber industry is still king in Lewis County, home to Pozgay-Brooks. Pacific County, where Ford resides, is the district’s connection to the ocean, known for its prolific shellfish industry.

The region’s geographic diversity mirrors its politics. It’s a swing district in part because of the close margin between voters who lean Democratic versus Republican. But many also pride themselves on their independence from the two-party binary — a plurality of likely voters in OPB’s poll identified more as independents than with either major party — and they’ve had a track record of electing politicians who share that sentiment.

Gluesenkamp Perez gambles in effort to court moderate voters

As one of only two House Democrats running for re-election in a district that backed Donald Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns, Gluesenkamp Perez is walking a tightrope.

“Nobody else is doing this. This is really hard,” she told OPB, adding, “that independent spirit is also a gift…that loyalty to your community, specifically, really matters. That is how you get good federal policy, not shoehorning yourself into a political or a partisan position, but saying, like, ‘What do people where I live actually believe?’”

Gluesenkamp Perez consistently ranks as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress. She’s also known for championing niche legislation, like a bill that would allow tribes to euthanize sea lions that threaten Pacific Northwest salmon populations, or regulate the brightness of headlights.

In Washington’s August primary, a Democratic challenger to the left of Gluesenkamp Perez cost her 35,820 votes, including Owen Thornhill’s. Political observers say she needs to win most of them back to keep the seat under Democratic control.

When Gluesenkamp Perez first ran for Congress in 2022, Thornhill, 39, was eager to canvas for her.

A sales representative from Ireland who immigrated to the U.S. 13 years ago, he saw her candidacy not just as an opportunity to flip a seat that had been held by a Republican for six terms, but to send someone with a progressive style of working-class politics to Washington, D.C.

Four years later, he’s having some buyer’s remorse.

“She doesn’t act like a Democrat,” he said. “And when it comes to tight votes, I don’t trust her, and that’s a large reason why I’m reluctant to support her.”

In the final weeks of her reelection campaign, Gluesenkamp Perez has tried to emphasize issues — like the cost of fuel — that have the potential to unite the various factions she needs to assemble into a coalition.

“Obviously, the major driver here is the war in Iran,” she said, “which I’ve voted against six times now and will continue to fight to end this war.”

She has also criticized Congressional Republicans’ healthcare policies, namely tightening Medicaid eligibility requirements and not extending pandemic-era enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

These positions aren’t enough to bring back the excitement Thornhill once had for Gluesenkamp Perez, but they may be enough to get his reluctant vote.

“There’s very little I like about her at this stage, to be honest,” he said, “but even if she only votes 40% with Democrats, that’s probably 40% more than John Braun would.”

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report last week changed its rating of the race from a “toss up” to “Lean Democrat” after a series of polls showed the national political environment shifting towards Democrats.

“If this is a blue wave year, then it’s hard to see Republicans flipping the seat,” said Erin Covey, who leads CPR’s House coverage.

Voters like Thornhill are a big reason for that. For a while now, there’s been a contingent of Democratic voters who don’t like the incumbent. But Covey predicted, when faced with this binary choice, “they’re going to come home” to Gluesenkamp Perez.

Braun’s success could depend on distancing himself from Trump

Like Gluesenkamp Perez, Braun also has to walk a fine line. He needs to spur enough enthusiasm among staunch Republicans that they cast ballots, but he also needs to pitch himself to voters who are unhappy with the Trump administration. OPB’s poll found 58% of likely voters in the district have a negative view of the president, who has endorsed Braun in the race.

When asked what he thought of Republicans’ move to not extend ACA subsidies last year, Braun said he agreed with his party’s reasoning — that the subsidies were never meant to be permanent. But he added that simply not extending them without addressing the underlying issue of healthcare access wasn’t the best solution either.

As a state senator, Braun voted against multiple bills aimed at lowering prescription drug costs, and opposed legislation codifying protections for people with pre-existing conditions. He supported a number of bipartisan healthcare policies, particularly those involving behavioral health and substance-use treatment and prevention.

Throughout his campaign, Braun has touted his experience working across the aisle in the Washington State Senate to pass bipartisan legislation.

“My record shows somebody who has not only been willing to buck the party, but actually pull my party to a better answer over time,” Braun said, “and I think that’s what we need.”

Braun said energy prices are a big pain point for Southwest Washington constituents and he mostly attributed the problem to “bad state policy.” He also acknowledged the role of the war in Iran.

“We can’t allow a world where Iran has nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles,” he said. “That said, I would not support an open-ended war without clear objectives.”

Braun, who served for 31 years in the U.S. Navy before entering politics, declined to say definitively whether he would vote for a resolution to end the Iran war if elected.

U.S. involvement in wars abroad has become a major source of frustration for Dale Ford, a 51-year-old welder at an agricultural manufacturing business who lives in Naselle, an unincorporated coastal community just 17 miles from Astoria, Oregon.

Ford voted multiple times for President Trump, mostly because he didn’t like the alternatives. That tepid support has waned, he said, as costly wars in Iran and Ukraine dominate the president’s second term.

“He’s a hypocrite. He’s not making America great again, and he’s not putting America first,” Ford said of Trump. Though he identifies as a Republican, Ford feels as though neither party reflects his priorities — at the presidential level or in Congress.

In recent weeks, he’s been inundated with TV ads and mailers for Braun and Gluesenkamp Perez. “In fact, I just threw a John Braun ad away,” he said while on the phone with OPB.

As of Oct. 9, outside groups had reported about $3.4 million in independent expenditures in the race, according to Federal Election Commission filings, though total outside advertising spending is higher.

More than $2.6 million has come from Republican-aligned PACs and super PACs, including more than $300,000 from Elon Musk’s America PAC and about $2.3 million from Trump’s No Going Back PAC.

Most of the more modest Democratic spending is fueled by the center-left Welcome PAC and the House Majority PAC. OPB’s poll found 72% of likely voters are worn out by the deluge of campaign ads.

Still, Ford is planning to cast a reluctant vote for Braun.

“I’d have to go with my gut and go with my Republican background and vote for the Republican, because he’s not making me a bunch of promises he can’t keep,” Ford said.

‘Let the chips fall where they may’

Rachel Pozgay-Brooks, 31, is a stay-at-home parent who lives with her husband, a wildland firefighter, and their two young kids in an RV in Chehalis, one of the northernmost cities in the district, just 30 miles south of Olympia on the I-5 corridor.

She says they receive federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and are on Apple Health, Washington’s Medicaid program.

Her husband’s seasonal income doesn’t leave them with anything to spare. “We can’t save up to change our situation,” she said.

In recent months, as gas prices have shot up, Pozgay-Brooks has planned outings strategically, scheduling multiple appointments in town for the same day or forgoing trips altogether.

She considers herself “very liberal” and has no interest in voting for Braun in the 3rd District race. But as she prepares to cast her ballot, she thinks back over the last four years. Like Thornhill, she voted for Gluesenkamp Perez in 2022 and 2024.

“I was cautiously optimistic the first time,” she said. “I was disappointed but understood the assignment the second time.”

In this year’s primary, she voted for Brent Hennrich, the progressive challenger, “ and I advocated very hard for him because I actually spoke with him personally many times.”

She said she’s tried reaching out to Gluesenkamp Perez’s office but has never heard back, other than what Pozgay-Brooks called “an auto-generated email of just platitudes.”

“The only thing she has ever talked about that I actually agree with her on is the thing about headlights being too bright,” Pozgay-Brooks said, referring to legislation Gluesenkamp Perez introduced to create a federal maximum brightness standard for low-beam headlights.

But Pozgay-Brooks says when it comes to issues like the rights of transgender kids and funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the Congresswoman’s record veers too far from her own beliefs.

Gluesenkamp Perez was one of just seven Democrats who voted for a DHS funding bill in January, arguing a shutdown would hurt FEMA and the Coast Guard, which are housed under DHS along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She voted against a bill to expand ICE funding in June.

On the issue of transgender rights, she voted against two amendments to a military spending bill that would bar trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in military academies and prohibit military healthcare providers from covering gender-affirming care for service members.

But she also voted with Republicans and seven other Democrats in May on a bill requiring elementary and middle schools that receive federal funding to obtain parental consent before changing a student’s pronouns or preferred name on forms.

As a queer person, Pozgay-Brooks says some of these issues are personal. With the November election just a few weeks away, she has decided she’s had enough of the “lesser of two evils” principle.

“She does not get my vote just because I know how bad her opponent is,” she said of Gluesenkamp Perez.

“I’m going to fill out my ballot for everything but a Congressional representative,” she said. “I’m going to let the chips fall where they may.”