Oh, Marie. You can almost hear the gears turning in her head as she tries to square her campaign trail sermons about rejecting out-of-touch elites with her quiet cashing of checks signed by… the Queen Bee of Beltway elitism herself, Nancy Pelosi.
That’s right—Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who waxed poetic in 2022 about not seeing “leadership in Congress looking like that,” meaning Pelosi, somehow found Pelosi’s money plenty worthy of stuffing into her campaign coffers. To the tune of $31,000, no less. For someone who claimed to be blazing a new trail for the blue-collar voice in Washington, she sure walked straight into the same old Democratic hypocrisy trap.
WATCH: Congresswoman-elect Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez (D-Wash.) says she wouldn’t support Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader or speaker, but stops short of naming an alternative. @MGPforCongress: “I’ve been clear. I believe that we need change in our leadership.” pic.twitter.com/17MOdHGZaU
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 15, 2022
Let’s break that down for a second. Thirty-one grand from Pelosi and her PAC empire—PAC to the Future and Nancy Pelosi for Congress—flowed directly into Gluesenkamp Perez’s war chest. That’s not just pocket change in her working-class district. According to the U.S. Census, that cash haul is more than a third of the median household income in the very communities she claims to champion. But hey, who needs principles when you’ve got a re-election campaign to fund?
This isn’t just about the money. It’s about trust. Gluesenkamp Perez built her brand on not being “that kind of Democrat.” You know, the Pelosi-backing, rubber-stamping, Capitol cocktail-sipping kind. She talked like she was different. She postured like she was independent. Yet now she’s just another player in the D.C. machine—smiling for the cameras while pocketing donations from the same insiders she once claimed to oppose. It’s not just laughable; it’s textbook political double-dealing.
Vulnerable House Dem rakes in thousands of dollars from Pelosi despite past criticism:
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., described Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., during her 2022 campaign as unrepresentative of American voters, but campaign finance re… https://t.co/IUb5y4wqHq— Elwin Sidney (@ElwinSidney) April 29, 2025
And she’s feeling the heat not just from the right but from her own side. At a recent town hall, she was greeted with signs reading “Shame on you” and chants of “Vote her out.” That’s not coming from MAGA country. That’s her base, the Democrats she was supposed to win over with her “normal people in politics” shtick.
Why the backlash? Well, it turns out she had the audacity to vote for something called common sense—the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship to vote. You’d think that wouldn’t be controversial, right? Apparently not, if you’re a Democrat in 2025.
But Gluesenkamp Perez didn’t stop there. She also drew fire from the left for voting to censure Rep. Al Green, who decided to treat a joint address to Congress like a one-man show at an open mic night. She called it out for what it was—unacceptable behavior. Yet again, her party couldn’t handle someone coloring even slightly outside the lines.
Let’s not forget: this is the same congresswoman who barely scraped by in both of her elections, winning in a district that Republicans are gunning for with everything they’ve got. Joe Kent nearly took her down—twice—and with this track record of flip-flopping and fence-sitting, the third time might just be the charm. Republicans don’t need to invent attack ads—her own contradictions write the script.
So here we are with a congresswoman who wants to sound like a populist while cashing elite checks, who votes for commonsense election integrity but then wonders why her party stages a mutiny. She’s too Pelosi for the middle, too moderate for the left, and too politically confused for her own good. And that, folks, is what happens when you try to have your artisan, locally-sourced cake and eat it too in Washington.
