1. Joe Kent was the Republican nominee in the 2022 election for Washington's 3rd congressional district.
26 Facts About Joe Kent
1. 2.
Joe Kent defeated incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler in the primary, but lost in an upset to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the general election.
3.
Joe Kent was described by media sources as a far-right politician and promoted various conspiracy theories, including the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are "experimental gene therapy".
4.
Joe Kent challenged for the seat again in 2024, and was defeated again by Gluesenkamp Perez.
5.
Joe Kent was born in Sweet Home, Oregon, and raised in Portland.
6.
Joe Kent served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, Army Special Forces, and the Intelligence Support Activity.
7.
In 2018, Joe Kent left the Army and began working for the CIA's Special Activities Center.
8.
Joe Kent left that job after his wife, Shannon, was killed in the 2019 Manbij bombing.
9.
Joe Kent announced the launch of his campaign for Washington's 3rd congressional district on February 18,2021; he cited incumbent Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler's vote in favor of the second impeachment of Donald Trump as a factor in his decision to run.
10.
Joe Kent's candidacy was endorsed by Donald Trump and numerous other prominent figures from the Republican Party's pro-Trump wing, including Michael Flynn and Matt Gaetz.
11.
In what was widely considered a major upset, Joe Kent lost the election to Perez.
12.
Joe Kent subsequently said he would not concede until "every legal vote is counted".
13.
On January 11,2023, Joe Kent announced he would be running again for the same House seat in 2024, saying that Gluesenkamp Perez "votes in lockstep [with] the radical left's agenda that's crushing working families" in his announcement.
14.
Joe Kent is one of three candidates who announced that they would challenge Gluesenkamp Perez.
15.
On February 3,2025, Donald Trump nominated Joe Kent to be the next director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
16.
Meanwhile, Joe Kent has been serving as acting chief of staff for Tulsi Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence.
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Joe Kent has been endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus.
18.
Joe Kent made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump a focus of his 2022 campaign.
19.
Joe Kent has said he supports school voucher programs and child tax deductions in addition to prioritizing energy independence.
20.
Joe Kent considers himself a non-interventionist, citing his military experience and the death of his wife.
21.
Joe Kent said that he lost many friends and his wife due to "our ruling class - Republicans and Democrats - consistently [having] lied to the American people to keep us engaged in wars abroad".
22.
Joe Kent referenced the work of white supremacist writer Sam Francis multiple times on the 2024 campaign trail.
23.
Fuentes had partaken in a call with Joe Kent discussing social media strategy; Joe Kent later said that he had no further contact with Fuentes after the call and had not sought Fuentes's endorsement.
24.
Joey Gibson, founder of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, has been linked to Kent; Gibson heavily promoted Kent's campaign on social media and spoke at a fundraiser for Kent, in which Kent praised Gibson for "defend[ing] this community when our community was under assault from antifa".
25.
In June 2022, Joe Kent was interviewed by Greyson Arnold, a neo-Nazi YouTube streamer.
26.
Joe Kent posed for a photograph with Arnold that Arnold then shared on social media.