PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The nail-biting continues for supporters of both incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and her GOP challenger Joe Kent in the race for the second spot on the general election ballot for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.
Herrera Beutler leads Kent by just 257 votes with 95% of the vote counted. The Washington Secretary of State’s website shows the next time ballot counts will be updated is Monday afternoon.
As long as a voter’s ballot was postmarked by 8 p.m. on primary night, that vote will be counted. That means it can take days for a final count to be tabulated.
Whoever takes this spot will face Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the November general election. Perez, who owns an auto shop in the district, took the top spot with more than 31% of the vote.
The battle between Herrera Beutler and Kent is a now-familiar tale: She voted to impeach Donald Trump following the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and he was endorsed by Trump in the primary.
However, another GOP representative in Washington who voted to impeach Trump, Dan Newhouse, survived his primary challenge.
On the same day as the Washington primary, voters in Michigan ousted Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican congressman who also voted to impeach Trump. He lost a tight primary battle to John Gibbs, who was endorsed by Trump. Meijer decried what he said was Democrats giving money to Gibbs in an effort to defeat Meijer because they believed Gibbs will be an easier candidate to defeat in November.
KOIN 6 News will continue to follow this story.