Asked about recent Democratic Socialists’ victories, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) repeatedly hesitated and did not criticize the movement, while her campaign has received more than $2 million this election cycle through a joint fundraising committee that includes the Washington State Democratic Party.
KUOW Soundside host Libby Denkmann asked Gluesenkamp Perez whether recent Democratic Socialist victories in New York and the Seattle area meant that “the party is leaving [her] behind completely” as an “old-school Democrat” who had carved out a centrist path.
“I think it’s important to make the point here that there’s a difference between centrism and between, um, uh, I guess, like, uh, um, moderation,” Gluesenkamp Perez said, adding that her positions reflect “strong majority opinions on both sides of the aisle.”
“I am 100 percent on board with frustration at the way politics has evolved or devolved,” she continued. “So, I absolutely understand and share the frustration and anger.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, celebrates with Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier during an election night watch party Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Republicans responded to the exchange by challenging Gluesenkamp Perez’s moderate image and pointing to her relationship with the Washington State Democratic Party and its policy platform.
“Fraud Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is too spineless to confront the socialist takeover of her party, too cowardly to even utter the word socialism, and too weak to condemn it,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Christian Martinez told Breitbart News. “Her carefully manufactured political brand is a pathetic lie. Perez is nothing more than a weak, obedient puppet who dances whenever her socialist masters tug the strings.”
Max Lavey, campaign manager for Washington state Sen. John Braun, who is Gluesenkamp Perez’s Republican opponent, said in a statement to Breitbart News, “Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has a long track record of aiding and abetting socialist policy. She donated to Bernie Sanders for President. She was on the State Democratic Executive Committee while it actively promoted the socialist Green New Deal.”
“She hasn’t uttered a word of protest while radicals in Olympia implement left-wing policies that harm her constituents,” he continued. “If the Democrats regain the majority in Congress her track record shows that she’ll roll over and let the Democratic Socialists of America run roughshod over the country.”
Reports provided to Breitbart News calculated that Gluesenkamp Perez’s campaign received $2,048,008.89 in transfers from the MGP Victory Fund during the 2026 election cycle. Federal Election Commission records identify the MGP Victory Fund as a joint fundraising committee whose participants are Marie for Congress, the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and Timber PAC.
The FEC records include transfers of $240,000 on June 30, 2025; $310,000 on September 30, 2025; $310,000 on December 31, 2025; and $45,000 on March 31, 2026. Gluesenkamp Perez’s July quarterly 2026 campaign-finance report also lists receipts from the MGP Victory Fund.
Gluesenkamp Perez has also served on the Washington State Democratic Party’s executive committee since 2020. Party materials describe the executive committee as governing the state party’s affairs and acting as a board responsible for overseeing policy and enforcing guidelines approved by state committee members.
Gluesenkamp Perez has served on the Washington state party’s executive committee since 2020, which “governs the affairs of the state party and acts as a board to oversee policy and enforce guidelines voted on by State Committee Members.”
She has overseen, enforced, and supports a radical state party platform that includes several policies central to the Democratic Socialists’ agenda. The platform calls for publicly owned and operated health care, single-payer health care, and nonprofit-only insurance. It also favors publicly owned energy utilities, guaranteed basic income, rent stabilization, government-provided housing, and a state-run bank. Other provisions include banning private-equity ownership of housing, requiring the sale of properties already owned, providing tuition-free college, and forgiving student loans.
Additional positions include ending qualified immunity for police officers and redirecting police funding toward alternative emergency-response mechanisms in an effort to reduce police power. The party’s 2020, 2022, and 2024 platforms opposed cash bail.
The 2020 and 2022 platforms called for the federal government to provide full coverage of transgender medical costs, including for incarcerated people, while the party has also supported restoring voting rights to criminals.
Its 2020 and 2022 platforms also opposed school resource officer programs, which have been credited with reducing some forms of school violence, including rape, robbery, and physical attacks.
Washington Democrats in 2022 called for decriminalizing possession of most drugs in a manner similar to Oregon’s Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of drugs including heroin, methamphetamine, phencyclidine, and fentanyl. Law-enforcement officials blamed that policy for increasing the availability of drugs and contributing to crime. Washington recorded a 51 percent increase in drug-overdose deaths in 2023, and Washington and Oregon experienced the country’s largest increases.
The party’s 2024 platform supported chain migration. Its 2020 and 2022 platforms called for a federal universal single-payer healthcare system that would include illegal aliens.
The Washington Democratic platforms adopted in 2020, 2022, and 2024 opposed the “Remain in Mexico” policy and the continued detention of asylum seekers at the southern border while their claims were processed. The same platforms supported sanctuary jurisdictions and opposed state and local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The 2020 and 2022 platforms also called for abolishing ICE, the federal agency charged with enforcing immigration laws and combating human trafficking and drug smuggling at the border. The materials noted that fatal overdoses have increased in Washington, including in Clark County, where drug overdose deaths had doubled.
Additional party positions include banning so-called assault weapons — a category that would encompass the most commonly owned firearm in the United States — and eliminating sport hunting.
The Washington State Democratic Party supported promoting the Green New Deal in its 2020 platform.
Breitbart News reported in September 2022 that an Instagram account for an auto-repair shop owned by Gluesenkamp Perez and her husband offered free assistance to people using leaf blowers during the 2020 Portland unrest, when members of Antifa reportedly used the devices to try to clear tear gas.
The post, on the Instagram account of Dean’s Car Care, @deanscarcarepdx, showed a picture of her husband Dean getting a hair cut, with the caption:
If you and your leaf blower have been getting busy supporting human rights, we’d like to do what we can to help keep that little machine working right (pro bono) shoot us an email and check your fluids.
Her campaign said an employee had written the post, denied that Gluesenkamp Perez or her husband supported Antifa, and said she backed fully funding police and opposed political violence. Republican Joe Kent’s campaign argued that the offer amounted to material support for Antifa.
Breitbart News reported in June 2023 that Gluesenkamp Perez and her husband had failed for more than six months to pay approximately $6,600 in property taxes on their Oregon auto-repair property. Gluesenkamp Perez said the missed deadline occurred while they were running their business, raising an infant, and campaigning, and she stated that the bill had been paid. Oregon Live reported that the payment was made about an hour after it contacted her office, while the National Republican Congressional Committee responded by delivering a copy of the book Small Business Taxes for Dummies to her congressional office.
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