Washington's 3rd congressional district encompasses the southernmost portion of

Western Washington Western Washington is a region of the United States defined as the area of Washington state west of the Cascade Mountains. This region is home to the state's largest city, Seattle, the state capital, Olympia, and most of the state's residents. T ...

. It includes the counties of

Lewis Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

, Wahkiakum,

Cowlitz Cowlitz may refer to: People * Cowlitz people, an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest ** Cowlitz language, member of the Tsamosan branch of the Coast Salish family of Salishan languages * Cowlitz Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe o ...

Clark Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin language, Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone ...

, and Skamania; as well as a small portion of southern Thurston county. The district is represented by Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

History

Established after the 1900 census, the 3rd district was represented by Democrats for most of the latter half of the 20th century, until Jolene Unsoeld was defeated by Republican Linda Smith as part of the

Republican Revolution The "Republican Revolution", "Revolution of '94", or "Gingrich Revolution" are political slogans that refer to the Republican Party (GOP) success in the 1994 U.S. mid-term elections, which resulted in a net gain of 54 seats in the House of ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

. Smith retired after two terms and was succeeded by Democrat Brian Baird. Baird announced he wouldn't run for re-election in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

, with Republican

Jaime Herrera Beutler Jaime Lynn Herrera Beutler ( ; born November 3, 1978) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2023. The district is in southwestern Washington, lying across the Columbia River from Oregon's Portland met ...

winning the seat, during the general election, against Democratic state representative

Denny Heck Dennis Lynn Heck (born July 29, 1952) is an American entrepreneur and politician serving as the 17th lieutenant governor of Washington. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the U.S. representative for Washington's 10th con ...

, who was subsequently elected in

Washington's 10th congressional district Washington's 10th congressional district is a congressional district in western Washington. The district is centered on the state capital, Olympia, and includes portions of Thurston and Pierce counties (including parts of Tacoma). It was cre ...

. Herrera Beutler retained her seat over Democrat Jon T. Haugen in

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

. In

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wa ...

, she beat Democratic nominee Bob Dingethal. In presidential elections, the 3rd district is rather competitive. It is the only part of Western Washington to not swing heavily to the Democrats during the 1990s, and it is one of the few districts in the area that cannot be considered safe for either party. It is home to Lewis County, far and away the most conservative county in western Washington. Additionally, most of the district is located in the

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

, market; voting patterns there are somewhat different from those in the areas closer to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

. George W. Bush narrowly carried the district in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

with 48% of the vote and again in

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with 50%. The district swung Democratic in

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, giving

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

52% of the vote and 46% to

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two te ...

. However, redistricting (see below) extended the district further east and made it slightly more Republican than its predecessor; had the current boundaries been in effect for the 2008 election, Obama would have only defeated McCain by 50.9 percent to 47.1 percent. In 2012, it gave

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...

49.6% to Obama's 47.9%. In the 2016 presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump won the district 49.9% to Hillary Clinton's 42.5%. Trump won every county entirely within the district except Clark County, which he lost by only 316 votes out of over two hundred thousand, including carrying three counties (

, Wahkiakum and

) that voted for

Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...

in 1984. In 2020, Trump won the district 50.6% to Joe Biden's 46.9%, however, the incumbent Republican Congresswoman, Jaime Herrera Beutler, over-performed the incumbent President, winning the district by a margin of 13%. Following the 2020 Census, the 3rd district was slightly changed during

redistricting Redistribution (re-districting in the United States and in the Philippines) is the process by which electoral districts are added, removed, or otherwise changed. Redistribution is a form of boundary delimitation that changes electoral distri ...

, losing Klickitat county to the

4th district Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'' (1972 film), a Sovie ...

and gaining an additional small sliver of Thurston county from the 10th district. The new 3rd district was marginally more favorable for Republicans, voting for Trump in 2020 by a margin of 4.2%, as opposed to the old district's 3.7%. Despite this, Democratic challenger Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez bested Republican nominee Joe Kent by 2,629 votes in 2022. WA03 109

List of members representing the district

Recent election results

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

2022

Census 2010 redistricting

The Washington State Redistricting Commission is charged with adjusting congressional and legislative district boundaries after each decennial

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

. Given Washington State's growth over the prior decade, Washington gained an additional

congressional district Congressional districts, also known as electoral districts and legislative districts, electorates, or wards in other nations, are divisions of a larger administrative region that represent the population of a region in the larger congressional bod ...

for the

113th congress The 113th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, from January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2015, during the fifth and sixth years of Barack Obama's presidency. It was composed of the ...

. The third district needed to lose 106,894 people in the redistricting process in order to meet the new ideal population of 672,454. On September 13, 2011, the four voting commissioners on the Redistricting Commission submitted draft proposals for the congressional map. All four draft proposals left the entirety of Lewis, Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, and Clark Counties, and all or most of Skamania county in the 3rd district. In addition, each proposal added population from one or more of Pacific, Thurston, Pierce, or Klickitat counties. The final approved map for the 3rd district included the entirety of Klickitat, Skamania,

, Wahkiakum,

, and

counties, with the extreme southern part of Thurston county south of highway 12,

Washington State Route 507 State Route 507 (SR 507) is a Washington state highway in Lewis, Thurston and Pierce counties that extends from (I-5) and (US 12) in Centralia to in Spanaway. The highway also intersects in Yelm and in McKenna. The firs ...

, and the Vail Cut Off Road.

References

;Specific ;General * *
Congressional Biographical Directory of the United States 1774–present
Their final version was approved and sent to the legislature on January 1, 2012.

External links

Washington State Redistricting Commission
''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

'', January 13, 2012 {{coord, 46, 30, N, 122, 48, W, format=dms, display=title, type:adm1st_region:US-WA 03