A House Democrat who faces a tough re-election bid to maintain her post in Congress has boasted about efforts from her and her colleagues to turn the centrist Blue Dog Coalition into an “antifascist rural” group.
Speaking during a “Postcarding and Conversation” late last month, Washington Democrat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez – who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition with Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska – said that she and other leadership within the coalition are working to “rebuild” the group after it lost some of its membership over disagreements earlier this year.
“So Jared, Mary, and I actually just took over the Blue Dogs,” Gluesenkamp Perez said during the July 31 event, which was hosted by the Downtown Nasty Women Social Group, a group of so-called progressive activists in New York City, and Markers for Democracy. “They basically lost some of their membership before we came in, and we are sort of rebuilding it into – Mary, Jared, and I – are rebuilding it into this sort of antifascist rural [group].”
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Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., said last month that she and other co-chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition are working to turn the centrist group into an “antifascist rural” group. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Used by Gluesenkamp to describe the group’s work, the word antifascist is typically shortened in political language today to Antifa
The comments made in private by Gluesenkamp Perez, who won election to represent Washington’s 3rd Congressional District last fall, came just days before the trio of Democrats embarked on a publicity tour to tout the Blue Dog Coalition’s alleged revamped moderate agenda.
Earlier this week, in a profile outlining the ambitions of the coalition under its new leadership, The Washington Post amplified the trio’s message and insisted they are looking to “stage a comeback for moderates” by heading up the group that has seen its membership continue to dwindle.
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Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, left, Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., center, serve as co-chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition for the 118th Congress. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“I do not think that, at its core, the trades community and rural communities are truly in the long term as well-served by modern Republican ideology. I believe it really is the Democratic Party that, in our history, believed in your rights to organize, the dignity of work,” Gluesenkamp Perez told the Post. “Those are the things that we want to see return. It’s not just about flipping seats for us. It’s about the long work of turning the train around and getting back to place-based politics and not focus grouped, Twitterati agendas.”
Gluesenkamp Perez, Golden and Peltola are considered vulnerable House Democrats by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). In March, the three Democrats, along with 34 of their other Democratic colleagues in the House, were listed by the NRCC as top targets in the 2024 election cycle. Gluesenkamp narrowly defeated her Republican challenger, Joe Kent, in the Washington 3rd District election last November.
Since 2010, the Blue Dog Coalition has suffered a dramatic loss in membership. Earlier this year, in January, six of the 15 expected members of the group departed over internal disagreements to change the coalition’s name to Common Sense Coalition in an effort to grow.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., arrives to the U.S. Capitol for the last votes of the week on Thursday, April 20, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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The coalition is now made up of 10 House Democrats, several of whom are not viewed by present standards as moderate politicians.
Gluesenkamp Perez’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.