OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A GOP candidate for the House of Representatives in Washington state who was backed by former President Donald Trump responded after election officials called his race.
The Associated Press has called the race for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District for Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez over former Army Green Beret Chief Warrant Officer Joe Kent 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent, a margin of 4,621 votes, with 70 percent of the votes counted.
If the AP’s call is confirmed by election officials, it would mean a seat held by Republicans since 2011 has turned blue. The seat was previously held by Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, but she lost her GOP primary to Kent after she was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Capitol riot in January 2021.
But Kent remained defiant and urged his supporters to continue on.
“What the media says is irrelevant, its another narrative designed to stop voters from ballot curing & to force me to concede – not gonna happen,” Kent tweeted about the time of the AP’s call.
What the media says is irrelevant, its another narrative designed to stop voters from ballot curing & to force me to concede – not gonna happen.
We’re on the streets ballot curing. The fight goes on while the talking heads talk.
Power dry & check your ballot 🇺🇸 https://t.co/qbswzzqNbm
— Joe Kent for WA-3 (@joekent16jan19) November 13, 2022
“We’re on the streets ballot curing. The fight goes on while the talking heads talk. Powder dry & check your ballot,” he added, along with an American flag emoji.
“The results of about two dozen congressional races across the country are still outstanding, and all Republicans need to successfully flip the chamber are seven of them,” Fox News Digital reported.
Prior to Election Day, polls showed that Republicans were expected to pick up the House and had a shot at picking up the Senate as well, but the latter will remain in Democratic hands after Nevada officials called the race Saturday evening for incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who narrowly defeated GOP challenger Adam Laxalt. Nevada was expected to be a Republican pickup.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo following the party’s less-than-stellar performance that Republicans now need to reassess a number of things.
“There were races we thought we were going to win that we didn’t, and there were people we didn’t think we’d lose that we did. I think for Republicans, this may be as big a time to reassess and look at things as it is for Democrats,” Gingrich said.
“Ron DeSantis got a huge boost and he is much more likely to run for president now. President Trump has to be looking at some of this and thinking about it because he worked very hard. He led a huge rally in Miami with Marco Rubio and Rick Scott two nights before the election, so he can take some credit,” he added.
“But I think DeSantis is probably the biggest single winner of the night. That means he will be, for everybody who doesn’t want Trump, Ron DeSantis will now become far and away the leading alternative and the superstar,” he further explained. “Somebody said to me this morning that [DeSantis] just gets things done.”
“I have to confess, I was up most of the evening with Kevin McCarthy looking at the data, talking to the analysts. There were a number of places where we thought we would do better than we did,” the former Speaker and Georgia Republican continued.
“The Democratic message of fear worked far better than I thought it would, that is part of it. I think it is a despicable message from the president of the United States and I think Biden is the most divisive president in American history, but he and his staff have to be saying that all of those nasty speeches, all of those vicious attacks on Republicans, it worked,” Gingrich offered. “Honest Republicans have to stop, take a deep breath, look at the results and analyze them. We don’t know enough this morning to know exactly what happened. We had a lot of candidates who came very close, including some incumbents who lost by very narrow margins.”
“That requires some rethinking on a lot of stuff, both the campaign consulting business, the polling business, and if some of the messages work. You have to admit that what the Democrats did work, they ran a very effective campaign of fear,” he concluded.
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