How to deal with the aging Interstate 5 bridge connecting Vancouver, Washington, with Portland, Oregon, has long been a big issue in Pacific Northwest politics.
So it made sense Joe Kent, a Republican candidate for Washington’s third congressional district now represented by freshman Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), would feature on his website an interview with a local resident about the bridge.
But the man in the video has also been charged with violating a state law by lying about his residence to run for a seat in the state legislature, which the Perez campaign says undercuts his credibility.
“While Marie is bringing back major infrastructure wins for the district that were years in the making, Joe Kent is busy posting conspiracy theories online all day and using people accused of fraud as validators for his warped online worldview,” said Tim Gowen, Perez’s campaign manager.
“The voters want someone who will deliver, not spend his time angry on the internet.”
A phone message and an email left with the Kent campaign went unreturned.
A Kent-Perez race would be a rematch of one of the most watched 2022 races that saw Perez barely eke out a narrow win, with 50.1% of the vote. It would also be a test of the appeal of the dwindling population of moderate House Democrats versus a candidate who ran as an ardent Donald Trump supporter the first time around.
Prior to 2022, the district had been represented by Jamie Herrera Beutler, a moderate Republican who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote with House Democrats to impeach Trump in 2021 in the wake of the failed insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol. She lost to Kent after Trump endorsed him in the primary.
Perez is one of three co-chairs of the 10-member Blue Dog coalition in the House, a group of moderate, often rural Democrats that have seen their numbers shrink in the last decade. The group’s other co-chairs include Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska).
Kent, a former Green Beret, gained notice in 2022 for his ties to right-wing extremists personalities and groups. The Associated Press reported he had sought the support of white supremacist Nick Fuentes and appeared at a rally in support of jailed Jan. 6 attackers.
Kent’s website says he is “focused on restoring common sense Republican values and defeating the woke extremist Democrat Congresswoman Marie Perez.”
In the video in question, former airline pilot John Ley is interviewed by Kent on his campaign site as part of a series of videos called “Get Local,” meant to highlight Kent’s engagement with area issues. In the video, Ley calls himself “the local Clark County expert on transportation.”
Ley was charged in September with registering to vote and filing to be a candidate for the Washington state legislature in 2022 in a district different from where he lived. The criminal charge came more than a year after a judge had declared Ley ineligible when an opponent filed a challenge to Ley’s residency. Ley had claimed residency in the legislative district after renting a room from a friend in the district for $1 a month.
Ley has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer has said the case amounts to a selective prosecution of a rarely enforced state law. He is currently scheduled for an April 2024 trial date.