First-term Democrat tries to hold on in Washington state district won by Trump in 2020

SEATTLE (AP) — Among the nation’s most closely watched races is a rematch in southwestern Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, where first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is defending her seat against Republican Joe Kent, a former Green Beret who has called for the impeachment of President Joe Biden.

Other campaigns of note in the state include the 8th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier is seeking a fourth term, and the 4th Congressional District in central Washington. There is no danger of that seat flipping parties, but the incumbent there is Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. He faces a challenge from the right in Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran.

Here’s a look at Washington’s liveliest congressional races:

Gluesenkamp Perez, who owns an auto-repair shop with her husband, came out of nowhere two years ago to win a seat that hadn’t been in Democratic hands for over a decade. She beat the Trump-endorsed Kent by fewer than 3,000 votes out of nearly 320,000 cast.

Her predecessor, moderate Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, held office for six terms but failed to survive the 2022 primary after voting to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection. The district narrowly went for Trump in 2020, making it a crucial target for both parties this year.

The race gained additional attention last week when an arson attack struck a ballot box in Vancouver — the district’s biggest city — scorching hundreds of ballots. Another ballot box was hit across the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon. People who cast their votes in the targeted Vancouver drop box were urged to contact the county auditor’s office to receive replacement ballots.

During her tenure Gluesenkamp Perez has balanced progressive policies with some measures popular with Republicans, including securing the U.S.-Mexico border — something she criticizes Biden for failing to do — and introducing a constitutional amendment to force presidents to balance the budget.

She supports abortion access and has hammered Kent, who previously has said he supported a national abortion ban, for changing his position after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Kent now says abortion laws should be left up to the states.

Gluesenkamp Perez supports policies to counter climate change, but also speaks openly about being a gun owner. A top priority is pushing a “right to repair” bill that would help people get equipment fixed without having to pay exorbitant prices to the original manufacturer.

Kent is a former Green Beret who served 11 combat deployments before joining the CIA. His wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologist, was killed by a suicide bomber in 2019 while fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, leaving him to raise their two young sons alone. Kent remarried last year.

His last campaign raised questions about his ties to white nationalists after he hired a Proud Boy as a consultant and, during a fundraiser, lavished praise on Joey Gibson, the founder of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer. Kent said he disavows white nationalism.

He has cited inflation and illegal immigration as top concerns.

Kent and Gluesenkamp Perez disagree on a major local issue: the replacement of a major bridge across the Columbia River between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Gluesenkamp Perez supports plans to replace the existing bridge. Kent has argued that a separate new bridge should be built while the old one is maintained. Plans for the replacement bridge would have “light rail that dumps downtown Portland’s problems into downtown Vancouver,” Kent said.

Newhouse’s bid for a sixth term is running up against Sessler, who was one of two Trump-endorsed candidates in the August primary. Together, Sessler and Tiffany Smiley took more than 52% of the vote — spelling trouble for the incumbent.

Newhouse is endorsed by the NRA and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and he has mostly steered clear of the subject of Trump. He’s instead focused on agriculture and border security in a state with millions of acres of pastures, orchards and cereal grain lands where immigrant labor is extremely important.

Sessler’s positions are in lockstep with Trump. He says he will fight for strong national security measures, including “an impenetrable border”; work to dismantle regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and other administrative agencies; and encourage tariffs and other sanctions on China.

“China’s obsession with global power, combined with its atheistic mindset, which removes the morality component, makes it a dangerous adversary,” Sessler said in one of many video statements about issues posted to his campaign website.

The 8th District, a mix of wealthy Seattle exurbs and central Washington farmland, had always been held by the GOP before incumbent Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, took office in 2019. She has survived a series of somewhat close races since then, taking about 52% or 53% of the vote.

Schrier combines progressive stances, such as protecting abortion rights, with an emphasis on securing highway money or funding for specialty crop research facilities. The Washington Farm Bureau endorsed her this year.

Schrier’s opponent is Carmen Goers, a commercial banker who says she is running to tamp down inflation, stop further regulation of American businesses, support law enforcement and cut back on crime. She also promised to “go to war with the Department of Education,” saying that instead of learning reading, writing and math, children are being “caught in the culture wars of the progressive left.”

Goers took 45% of the vote in the August top-two primary, compared to about 50% for Schrier. Two other Democrats combined for close to 5%.

A Washington State Trooper patrols the Fisher's Landing Transit Center ballot drop box, which was replaced after a fire caused by an incendiary device, in Vancouver, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

A voter drops his ballot at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center ballot drop box, which was replaced after a fire caused by an incendiary device, in Vancouver, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

A voter drops his ballot at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center ballot drop box, which was replaced after a fire caused by an incendiary device, in Vancouver, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

An election worker unlocks the Fisher's Landing Transit Center ballot drop box, which was replaced after a fire caused by an incendiary device, to collect ballots in Vancouver, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Elections workers collect ballots as voters drop them off at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center ballot drop box, which was replaced after a fire caused by an incendiary device, in Vancouver, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

WASHINGTON (AP) — After an election season marked by concerns over disinformation, foreign influence and worrisome threats to election workers and voting systems, Election Day unfolded relatively smoothly nationwide with only scattered disruptions and delays.

Leading into Tuesday, more than 82 million Americans had already cast their ballots in a largely successful early voting period with high turnout despite some hiccups and frustrations in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania.

And when the final day of voting came, the problems that cropped up were “largely expected routine and planned-for events,” said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. She said the agency was not currently tracking any national, significant incidents impacting election security.

Issues affecting voters on Tuesday included typical election mishaps, from a worker forgetting a key in Arizona's largest county to an election judge failing to show up at the polls in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County. Some precincts around the country faced issues with voter check-in processes and e-pollbooks, causing some delays for voters trying to cast ballots. Some areas had ballot printing mistakes and were printing new ballots and extending voting hours accordingly. Extreme weather across the midsection of the country also caused flooding and some other isolated problems, including knocking out power for at least one Missouri polling place that resorted to a generator to keep voting up and running.

Still, in various states affected by rain, voters enthusiastically huddled under umbrellas as they lined up to cast their ballots, not deterred in a presidential election that many U.S. voters view as crucially important to the future of U.S. democracy.

In the western part of the key swing state of Pennsylvania, a few counties saw reports of issues with tabulator machines that scan and count paper ballots filled out by voters. A Pennsylvania state judge ordered polls to remain open for two extra hours in Cambria County, which voted 68% for former President Donald Trump in 2020. The county sought the extension after a software malfunction affected the ballot-scanning machines, though county officials said no one was turned away from the polls and all ballots would be counted. It was yet to be seen how the extension might affect vote-counting timelines in the tight battleground.

In Georgia, another presidential swing state, fewer than a dozen precincts were set to stay open late because of delayed openings or evacuations due to alleged bomb threats that were found to be non-credible, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. That included two precincts in Cobb County, which is northwest of Atlanta. They were staying open until 7:20 p.m. because they opened late due to equipment issues.

The FBI on Tuesday afternoon said it was aware of multiple non-credible bomb threats to polling locations in several states and said many of them appeared to originate from Russian email domains.

The massive early voting turnout before Tuesday — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier — was driven partly by Republican voters, who cast early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats' longstanding advantage in the early vote.

The early voting period faced minimal problems, even in western North Carolina, which was hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads. That appeared to continue on Tuesday, with the North Carolina Board of Elections reporting no voting issues.

Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were still searching for the person responsible.

The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day.

Trump on Tuesday suggested he wouldn't challenge the results of the election — as long as it's fair.

“If it's a fair elections, I'd be the first one to acknowledge” the results, Trump said, though what meets that definition wasn't clear.

A late effort by Republicans to challenge Atlanta-area election offices' collection of mail ballots last weekend after early voting had ended was rejected as “frivolous,” with Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge R. Stan Baker saying the GOP argument “does not withstand even the most basic level of statutory review and reading comprehension.”

Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has urged voters not to fall for Trump's tactic of casting doubt on elections. She was spending Tuesday afternoon turning out her own vote at a phone bank hosted by the Democratic National Committee, and said phone banking represents “the best of who we are.”

This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.”

Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump's lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden's win.

Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass.

While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states.

On the eve of Election Day, officials issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes had been cast.

Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections.

“This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Janice Prior votes at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation building Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Rossville, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Chicago school teacher Tabitha Berry, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, fills out a ballot for the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Ronnie Brookshire votes, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Canton, N.C. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Voters arrive at the 146-year-old Buck Creek School to vote on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in rural Perry, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Vesta Avery, 2, helps her mother Alexis Taylor mark her ballot at P.S. M811, The Mickey Mantle School, in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Voters work on their ballots at a polling place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Three-year-old Zayn, sits on his father's shoulders as he inserts his ballot into a machine to vote at the First Presbyterian Church of Dearborn, on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Election workers process mail-in ballots for the 2024 General Election at the Chester County, Pa., administrative offices, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in West Chester, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A voter casts their ballot at a drop box in Denver on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Chet Strange)

Voters stand in line outside a polling place at Madison Church, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Phoenix, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Volunteers check the ballots at the Bronx County Supreme Court in New York on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Rain pours down while voters are waiting in line to cast their vote on Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 at West Gray Multiservice Center in Houston. (Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Voters cast their ballots at the Bronx County Supreme Court in New York on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Voters fill out their ballots Hilton Township Hall in Conroy, Iowa on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette via AP)

Rain pours down while voters are waiting in line to cast their vote on Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 at West Gray Multiservice Center in Houston. (Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Faith Denison, 38, left, holds her son, Lincoln Denison, 3, moments after casting her vote at the Centre of Palm Harbor, Fla., for the 2024 General Election on Tuesday, Nov 5, 2024. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

Voters cast their ballots at the Bronx County Supreme Court in New York on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Voters stand in line outside a polling place at Madison Church, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Phoenix, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Stickers lay on a table inside a polling place, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Voters line up to cast their ballots at The Church at Brook Hills on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks after voting on Election Day at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Three-year-old Zayn, sits on his father's shoulders as he votes at the First Presbyterian Church of Dearborn, on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at Scranton High School in Scranton, Pa., on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Liza Fortt, 74, center, waits in line to cast her ballot for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at her polling place at Scranton High School in Scranton, Pa., on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Election day worker Sean Vander Waal prepares to open a polling place,Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Voters stand in line while waiting for a polling place to open, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Springfield, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Voters stand in line while waiting for a polling place to open, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Springfield, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

People arrive at polling place to vote, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Springfield, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Voters line up to enter their polling place at the Cincinnati Observatory on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

People wait in line to cast their ballots at an early voting location, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Blue Springs, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

An elections official sorts counted mail-in ballots on the first day of tabulation, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, at the Maricopa County Recorder's Office in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)

FILE - A Delaware County secured drop box for the return of vote-by-mail ballots is pictured, May 2, 2022, in Newtown Square, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

People line up to vote at the Chicago Early Voting Loop Supersite in Chicago, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A voter fills out their their ballot during early voting in the general election, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

An election worker demonstrates mail-in ballot processing during a media preview at the Philadelphia Election Warehouse, in Philadelphia, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

A person walks past a sign during early voting in the general election, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Voters line up to vote as a early voting location opened in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

The final day of voting in the US is here, after tens of millions have already cast their ballots

The final day of voting in the US is here, after tens of millions have already cast their ballots

People stand in line during the last day of early voting, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)