Green Beret-turned-House hopeful says GOP unity under Trump improves chances to win in liberal state

Green Beret-turned-GOP congressional candidate Joe Kent likes his odds of winning a U.S. House seat in liberal Washington state in November after losing in 2022, saying Republicans have more unity this time under Donald Trump.

Kent will be facing incumbent Democratic Rep. Marie Perez in a rematch of their 2022 general election race in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the most southwest region of the state. 

"Number one we were coming out of a very divided [state] Republican primary," Kent said last week on the Just the News, No Noise TV show about his 2022 race against Perez. "I was about 500k in the hole. I didn't have any war chest. I burned it getting through the primary."

Kent is a former Green Beret and the husband of fallen soldier Shannon Kent, who was killed in the 2019 Manbij bombing in Syria.

In 2022, he won the Republican primary against Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. 

In this year's primary, he defeated former King County prosecutor Leslie Lewallen, who has been called a more moderate Republican.

Kent said that the Republican Party isn't as divided as it once was two years ago, and that his General Election opponent has a record of serving in Washington that aligns with the Biden-Harris administration that she will now have to defend to voters. 

"She has a record now," he said. "It reflects Biden and Harris's record on inflation, immigration, what's taking place in our schools with our kids, the endless wars ... . Everything that is destroying the country right now Marie Perez owns. And we are going to hold her accountable for that this fall."

To be sure, essentially the entire Republican congressional conference has fallen in line with Trump, notably in the Senate where leadership thinks the GOP can win back the chamber after having more of a consensus agreement about candidates. 

Kent previously served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump in 2021.

Perez's 2022 victory made her the first Democratic representative in the third district in over a decade, according to the Associated Press.

Kent said that the policies from the Biden administration have really crippled the economy in Washington state and another issue people are concerned about is fentanyl.

"Especially in Washington, [district] three, it's expensive to live on the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest with inflation stealing people's wages," Kent said. "The southern border and the fentanyl crisis are major issues."

He also said one of Perez's first votes in Congress was "to leave the border open.

"She came back to the district, and famously said, 'Nobody stays awake at night worrying about the southern border,'" Kent also said. "The Democrats have lots of money, but we have them on the message. So we'd be honored to have anybody on our team supporting us."