Gluesenkamp Perez takes early lead in Dist. 3 race

I missed everything he said, so I'm going to say it all over again. Hey, look, here's the situation. We are winning by a significant number in several of the seven counties we have. We have one county that's not favorable to us right now, but we have a lot of votes left to count. And so we're going to have to stay after it for the next few days to see where this lands. But in the meantime, I just want to offer a few thanks for everybody. It's done so much to make this campaign special, at least to me, to our family, to the people of Southwest Washington. This has been 14 months of working to try to change the direction for our state and our country. And whatever happens, I couldn't be more proud of everybody that helped out. I want to start by thanking my family. I started off in particular with my wife, Marlo, for 38 years. Over 38 years, military, business, raising our kids, everything. She has been her love, patience, I'll say patience twice. Her sacrifice has been my rock. We've been side by side. I deeply appreciate it. 14 months, especially knowing that she started out questioning my wisdom, but she got to be just a terrific supporter. Thank you for that. More broadly, a bunch of my family's here. I want to thank my brother Jim who's here. You know, we run the business here just off the Jail. I couldn't do things like this. I couldn't serve either the Senate or make this run without his tremendous support. And frankly, support from everybody in my family. Here somewhere, as many of you know, one person who couldn't be here today. I just think, you know, things that make a difference in your lives. People across Southwest are focused on this campaign. was about telling. You can demand, get up each day, do things. Here, in the back, we have a man who's worked tirelessly for over a year, solving problems I probably didn't even know about. But we've been all over the district, thousands of miles, No, no. thousands of people we've had a chance to talk to, and they've just worked night and day to bring change to Washington. I want to thank them. I want to thank each of you. You know everybody in this room has helped in one way whether it's as a volunteer, with financial support, a hundred different ways you've shown up and many others who aren't here. That's heartwarming. It gives you the sense that we can do things here at our state and our country if we put our mind to it. And then, of course, my biggest thing is... Okay, so here you have Representative Marie Glüten-Kamp Perez at the podium now, and we've got new developments in this race. Earlier we told you that Braun was in the lead, now it has flipped significantly in her favor. Marie Glüten-Kamp Perez coming in around 55% to 44%, John Braun, take a listen. Consolidating, trying to make a buck. Nobody names a business after themselves anymore. You pick something shiny that you can sell off one day. But Dean's point was that when your name is on something, your reputation is on the line every time you're sending out a break job or an engine rebuild, and people know exactly who to come find. It's old school, and it's the way it ought to be. And I've thought about this a lot over these last couple of years because my name keeps showing up on stuff. On your signs, on the commercials, and yards, and on buttons, and behind every one of those signs is one of you. It's one of you putting your name alongside of me. I cannot tell you how seriously I take that, how much that means to me that you put your name next to mine, that you signed up for this. And the accountability I feel to all of you when I'm taking votes. I think about all of you, and it is such a gift to work for such decent people, for the integrity of Southwest Washington, a team who has worked crazy hours for months. Those four of who we serve, to everybody who knocked on doors with wet socks. Who had conversations with their neighbors and their cousins and their weird uncle. And who had the difficult conversations and knitted back together our country to rebuild a shared reality that is the basis of democracy. Thank you to my parents. Thank you to my in-laws, Bobby and Carrie. Thank you to my brother and my sister. Thank you to, thank you to, most of all, to Dean, and to my... To my son, who has sacrificed and shared so generously and patiently my time for this longer work that we are all in debt to, the long work of building a country worth living in. You know, I take what you do so seriously, and I promise I will not let our efforts go to waste here. And there's another kind of help I want to thank people for. It's the people who've opened themselves up. Their shop floors, their businesses, their lives, the lineman who walks me through why a power pole doesn't last as long, a daycare worker who walks me through why she can't peel a banana, the folks at the ports in our mills, on our farms, in our woods. So many of you pick up the phone when I call before a vote and tell me what it would actually do to your school, your grocery store, our woods. I have profound. Gratitude for that, because that's how you get good federal policy. You do not get good federal policy if you don't show up with loyalty to your district with humility and curiosity. To understand how things actually work and why they are broken and how we can fix them and what is actually worth having in life, what the good life means to us. You make me a better representative. I carry those conversations every single time I cast a vote. Now, you all know that we were up against, we were the most outspent incumbent in the Democratic caucus. They poured millions of dollars into buying the seat and it failed. It failed. And a lot of mailers, what I can't buy is somebody standing on their neighbor's porch in the rain with wet socks. I can't buy sitting at a kitchen table with somebody. Who disagrees with you on the particulars but not on the values, it can't buy the curiosity and the humility to have those conversations and the loyalty to the longer work of having a knit democracy, a deliberative democracy where we're not bought and sold talking points from a think tank from a bunch of dweezils with a PhD in poli sci in Washington DC. for the chance to be useful. You all are the inoculant for the kind of outside money we're seeing in this race. And all over the country, it is not glamorous, but it works, it works. Loyalty to our neighbors works, thank God. It is everyday people doing the quiet and necessary work to build community. That is how we push back against the would-be barons, the would-be dominions of the outside world and say that what we have here is worth fighting for. My God, the fight can be hard, but what a gift to have something worth fighting for. What I'm seeing in these election results and we are proud and confident that we are We are going to carry this seat.