This is the first installment of a two-part exploration of certain, probable and/or needed changes to the Oregon delegation to the US House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.
Top Line: Along with the great danger of the Oregon US House delegation becoming worse on public lands issues, there are also great opportunities for it to be better.
Map 1. The dark red district (District 2) is presently represented by Republican Cliff Bentz. The dark blue districts are currently represented by Democrats Suzanne Bonamici (District 1) and Earl Blumenauer (District 3). The two light blue districts are currently represented by Democrats Andrea Salinas (District 6) and Val Hoyle (District 4). The lavender blush district is currently represented by Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer (District 5). Source: fivethirtyeight.com.
Candidates’ campaigns for the US House of Representatives in the 2024 elections are already under way, and there is more uncertainty than usual about the outcome of these elections in Oregon. Citizen engagement will be crucial to turning the tide in favor of candidates who care about nature and the climate.
Only 10 percent, or about 44, of the nation’s 435 seats in the US House of Representatives are “competitive,” according to The Hill. That means one could bet today on the outcome of 391 House elections and have a lead-pipe cinch of winning such a wager—if one could even find another bettor willing to take the opposing bet.
What does it mean to say a district is competitive? According to the Montana League of Women Voters:
A district is competitive when the number of voters of each party [is] close enough . . . that the candidate of either party could win. The outcome of the election is not a foregone conclusion.
Only one of Oregon’s districts is highly competitive, and two are somewhat competitive. (Many non-competitive districts are such that in certain states one party simply has a huge registration advantage over the other.) These are the races to keep an eye on—and give time and money to.
Partisan Advantage in Oregon’s Six Districts
Most US House districts have been gerrymandered for partisan advantage, including in Oregon. If Jesus Christ himself (or, if you prefer, Taylor Swift herself) were to run as a Republican in either the Oregon 1st or 3rd, or as a Democrat in the Oregon 2nd, He (She) would lose by a landslide.
Consider the partisan advantage in Oregon’s six congressional districts. In the following list, D or R is the party that has the advantage in voter registration and n is the percentage of the advantage.
1st D+34 Suzanne Bonamici (D)
2nd R+28 Cliff Bentz (R)
3rd D+43 Earl Blumenauer (D)
4th D+9 Val Hoyle (D)
5th D+3 Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R)
6th D+7 Andrea Salinas (D)
The Democrats controlled redistricting in Oregon after the 2020 census and did a lousy job of it, allocating way more Democrats than necessary to keep the Oregon 1st and 3rd as “locks.” They could have spread those Democrats more across the Oregon 4th, 5th, and 6th, making these districts safer. This would have had the effect of making the Oregon 2nd even more of a lock for Republicans.
Safe districts mean little turnover and mostly boring elections. However, there is more variability than usual in 2024 for several of Oregon’s US House seats. Let’s examine them, starting in this installment with the most interesting.
Oregon 5th
The Oregon 5th is a sprawling district that ranges from Southeast Woodstock Avenue in Portland to Sunriver. Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) faces a severe re-election challenge there, as her district is Oregon’s most competitive (the gap between the numbers of Republicans and Democrats registered to vote is small). In 2022, Chavez-DeRemer received 50.9 percent of the vote. Her Democratic opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, received 48.8 percent of the vote.
Figure 1. Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR-5th). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
Chavez-DeRemer faces two political hurdles in getting re-elected in 2024. First, she must avoid or beat any primary challenger from her right (so far, no one has filed). Her having voted for Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA-4th) for Speaker of the House will help her stave off a primary challenger (but we’ll see by Oregon’s 2024 filing deadline of February 29). Assuming she wins her primary, Chavez-DeRemer will face a Democrat in a slightly Democratic-leaning district. Her having voted for such an extremely conservative, election-denying House Speaker won’t help her win votes among swing-vote moderates in the Oregon 5th.
It will mostly depend upon whether the Democratic primary yields a viable challenger. Here’s the likely field at this point:
• Jamie McLeod-Skinner (see above)
• State Representative Janelle Bynum (D-Happy Valley)
• Metro Counselor Lynn Peterson
McLeod-Skinner deserves credit for knocking out the incumbent Democrat, Kurt Schrader, in the 2022 Democratic primary. McLeod-Skinner came in third in the Democratic primary for Oregon secretary of state in 2020. She first gained political prominence as the Democratic nominee in 2018 for the Oregon 2nd, where she lost badly to Republican Greg Walden.
Bynum has defeated Chavez-DeRemer two times, albeit when both were running for state representative for District 39, centered on Happy Valley. Populationwise, there are ten Oregon house districts for one US House of Representatives district in Oregon.
Peterson was previously a Clackamas County commissioner and, according to political analyst Randy Stapilus, “entered politics through working with conservation groups, and retains strong ties there.”
All three are viable candidates, meaning they have raised or can raise money to campaign. Easton had $0 cash on hand as of October 26, 2023.
Who’s the best Democrat, both to defeat the incumbent Republican and to stand for the conservation of nature? All three of the viable candidates have significant campaign experience; two of them have actually won elections. As for the environment, we’ll have to see who makes the best campaign commitments. Who supports a Douglas-Fir National Monument? Who favors the establishment of more wilderness areas, and which ones? Who favors the proposed River Democracy Act (RDA), sponsored by Oregon’s US Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley? I could go on.
Speaking of the RDA, wild and scenic rivers designations have very strong support among most Oregonians, and this support is quite bipartisan. If Representative Chavez-DeRemer were to sponsor a House companion to the RDA, it would allow her to tout her support for a very popular cause, and a bipartisan one at that. Such would make it somewhat harder for her Democratic opponent to paint her as 100 percent bad on issues that most voters in the Oregon 5th care about.
Oregon 6th
Representative Andrea Salinas (D) is the first to represent the new Oregon 6th. She won by 50.1 percent, with the Republican getting 47.7 percent. In 2024, let’s hope the Constitution Party of Oregon (founded three times: 1952, 1974, and 2000), runs another arch-conservative to suck off votes from the Republican.
Figure 2. Representative Andrea Salinas (D-OR-6th). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
The Oregon 6th has the least federal public land of any of Oregon’s congressional districts, but Salinas could introduce legislation to establish the Mount Hebo Wilderness in her district—if she is re-elected. This reminds me that I need to make a contribution to Andrea’s campaign. I gave, for me, quite heavily to her for her primary bid in 2022, as another candidate in that race benefited from millions of dollars from then crypto-billionaire, now crypto-felon Sam Bankman-Fried.
Salinas won’t likely be primaried but is likely to face former state senator Denyc Boles or possibly David Russ in the 2024 general election.
Boles is a former member of the Oregon State Senate and Oregon House of Representatives. In the House, Boles, according to the Oregon League of Conservation Votes, Boles voted for conservation only 29 percent of the time. While in the Senate, she (among many others) “voted to send HB 2020 [the clean energy and jobs bill] back to committee instead of allowing a vote on the bill itself to take place. Their silence on climate action makes it impossible for [OLCV] to give them a grade.” I was a board member of OLCV in the late 1980s and have followed them since. Never before has OLCV given more weight in scoring to one bill and never before has it handed out “incompletes.” These are not normal times.
Russ, according to Ballotpedia, “ an accountant, as a consultant, as a real estate broker, as a mayor, in multi-industry manufacturing, and in technology administration.” Russ’ website claims that “GOD” favors him in the race and that he is “10% FOR YOU; 100% ANTI-COMMUNIST [all emphases in original].
Oregon 3rd
Alas, I won’t miss seeing Representative Earl Blumenauer (D) in Congress. At the end of 2024, when he has declared he will be retiring, he will have served in the US House of Representatives twenty-eight years. In terms of public lands conservation in Oregon, I will remember Earl for three main big things:
• Saving Steens Mountain (2000). Earl played a critical role in the congressional enactment of the Steens Mountain Act of 2000, which, among other things, established wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers, provided for special protection of 0.5 million acres of greater Steens Mountain, and withdrew from the threat of mining (then gold, today lithium) another 0.5 million acres east of Steens Mountain.
• Successfully saving nature (wilderness and wild and scenic rivers) on the Mount Hood National Forest (2009). Another conservation highlight was the establishment or expansion of several wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers on and around Mount Hood.
• Unsuccessfully degrading nature on the Mount Hood National Forest (2022). However, Earl’s conservation lowlight was a bill that would have exalted recreation at the expense of nature on and around Mount Hood. (See my Public Lands Blog post entitled “Blumenauer’s REC Act of 2022: A Wreck for Conservation.”)
Figure 3. Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-3rd). Source: Wikipedia (US House of Representatives).
Whoever wins the Democratic primary in 2024 will become the new member of Congress from the Oregon 3rd. There are several candidates now, and more are likely. Remember, a majority is not needed but merely a plurality. Whoever gets the most votes in the crowded field wins.
Let’s review the existing Democratic contestants (more are possible before the filing deadline):
• Nolan Bylenga, a self-described activist
• Jeremiah Campion (no information available)
• Maxine Dexter, state representative
• Susheela Jayapal, former Multnomah County commissioner
• Eddy Morales, Gresham city councilor
The inclination of most progressive organizations will be to sit this one out, saying all the candidates are worthy, lest they back a loser. However, if a candidate takes a very strong position on an issue core to that interest group, it will be harder for the interest group to sit by.
In the next installment, we’ll look at the races in Oregon’s 1st, 2nd, and 4th Districts.
For More Information
Jaquiss, Nigel. November 1, 2023. Exit Interview: Earl Blumenauer. Willamette Week.
Kerr, Andy. 2021. Oregon’s New Congressional Districts and Conserving Public Lands. Public Lands Blog.
Stapilus, Randy. July 24, 2023. “Oregon’s 5th Congressional District Is Gearing Up to Be Competitive in 2024.” Oregon Capital Chronicle.
———. November 1, 2023. “Blumenauer Retiring but District Will Remain Solidly Blue.” Oregon Capital Chronicle.