Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is the Democratic incumbent representing Washington's 3rd Congressional District, covering Southwest Washington. She won the seat in a 2022 upset over Republican Joe Kent, was re-elected in a 2024 rematch, and is running for a third term in the 2026 primary. She serves as co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition and has been recognized for a bipartisan legislative record.

Born in Harris County, Texas, in 1988, Gluesenkamp Perez is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant father who became a pastor and a mother whose Washington roots run back generations, including a great-great-grandfather who helped build the Washington State Capitol and a grandmother born in a logging camp in Sappho, Washington. Her parents met at Western Washington University. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Reed College in 2012, later serving on the executive committee of the Washington State Democratic Party and the board of the Underwood Conservation District.

Before Congress, Gluesenkamp Perez and her husband, Dean, built an independent auto repair shop from the ground up into a six-bay operation providing living-wage trades jobs. Her own experience navigating a lengthy Small Business Administration loan application and being unable to afford health insurance for herself and her husband while insuring their infant son shaped her decision to run. In Congress, she has worked to secure federal funding toward replacing the aging Interstate Bridge carrying I-5 over the Columbia River and has introduced bipartisan right-to-repair legislation for agricultural equipment as a member of the House Agriculture Committee.