SEATTLE — Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent conceded in the race for Washington's 3rd Congressional District after an official recount his campaign applied for.
"I promised during the campaign that I would accept the outcome of the election, now definitively determined as the recount has concluded," Kent said in a statement. "While I’m disappointed that we did not prevail, our campaign and our supporters have a lot to be proud of."
The secretary of state’s office reported that Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez won the race with 50.14% of the vote to Kent’s 49.31%. The margin of 2,629 votes — or 0.83% — avoided an automatic recount, which only happens if the difference in totals is less than 0.5% and is also less than 2,000 votes.
In a November tweet, after county election officials finalized their tallied results and submitted them to the state for certification, Kent announced that his campaign would move ahead with their own recount.
Kent cited the "small margin" of votes between himself and Gluesenkamp Perez as the reason his campaign applied for the recount.
Kent repeatedly stated throughout his campaign that he will accept the certified results of this election, but he's also expressed doubts about the outcome of the 2020 election.
U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a moderate Republican, was first elected in 2010 to Washington's 3rd Congressional District seat. In 2021, she was one of a handful of Republican representatives who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot — a move that got her censured by Clark County Republicans.
During the 2022 primary, the race included not only Herrera Beutler and Gluesenkamp Perez, but two more Republican candidates who ran to the incumbent's right: Joe Kent and Heidi St. John.
When the dust settled after Washington's "top-two" primary, Herrera Beutler was edged out of a general election run-off after Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent earned the most votes.
