House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries looks on as Democratic Congressional candidate Janelle Bynum speaks at a press conference of support on October 2, 2024. (Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
CLACKAMAS — In 2023, top congressional Democrat Hakeem Jeffries urged Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum to run for one of the nation’s closest U.S. House races. On Wednesday, he stood side by side with Bynum at her campaign headquarters and told reporters that a Democratic victory in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District is a way to stop an “extreme” Republican agenda.
Bynum, D-Clackamas, is running against first-term U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Happy Valley Republican who defeated Bynum twice in legislative elections. Democrats are hoping she wins a third time, and they’ve brought Jeffries to town to help Bynum make the case that Chavez-DeRemer — who boasts of having the second-most bipartisan voting record in Congress in 2023 — ‘extreme MAGA Republican’ who is running against a “smart, substantive, serious, small business owner, sporty mother of four.”
Jeffries is traveling around the country campaigning with Democratic challengers, including a visit to Arizona on Tuesday and a visit to New Mexico on Thursday. But he emphasized the importance of several close races in Oregon — along with Bynum challenging Chavez-DeRemer in Oregon’s 5th District, Democrats are working to defend freshman Democratic Reps. Val Hoyle in the 4th District and Andrea Salinas in the 6th district.
“It was especially important to me to have the opportunity to spend some time with Janelle Bynum because she is the ultimate example of what a member of the House of Representatives and a public servant should be,” Jeffries said. “She has the intelligence, heart, soul, integrity and dedication to represent people and make a difference in their lives.”
Most of his brief remarks focused on Project 2025, the presidential transition plan drawn up by the conservative Heritage Foundation for a second term of Donald Trump. While Trump has tried to distance himself from the plan, which includes restrictions on abortion, immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, dozens of former Trump administration aides have worked on it.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans, including Lori Chavez-DeRemer, placed Trump’s Project 2025 above the people of this great state,” Jeffries said. “That’s a very dangerous thing to do because Project 2025 is about extreme MAGA Republicans exercising total control over the lives of the American people.”
The Chavez-DeRemer campaign and the National Republican Congressional Committee analyzed Jeffries’ visit in statements. NRCC spokesman Ben Petersen called it “filled with lies” and said Jeffries was the real extremist, while Nick Trainer, a senior adviser to Chavez-DeRemer, said Chavez-DeRemer has not and will not read Project 2025.
“This is a desperate attempt by Janelle Bynum and Hakeem Jeffries to mask their liberal extremism,” Trainer said. “From defending Measure 110 (Oregon’s drug decriminalization measure) to siding with Defund the Police groups, Janelle Bynum’s dangerous record in the Legislature speaks for itself – she wouldn’t do anything be more than a rubber stamp for Leader Jeffries’ extreme agenda that would destroy our economy and make our communities even less safe. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer had the second-most bipartisan voting record in Congress last year and has more union support than her opponent – her record proves she is only accountable to the people of Oregon.”
Chavez-DeRemer touts 20 union endorsements, most from smaller local unions, although she also has sole support from Teamsters Joint Council No. 37, which represents approximately 20,000 workers in various industries in Oregon, Idaho and southwest Washington. Oregon’s largest private union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, gave both Bynum and Chavez-DeRemer the “green light” stamp, indicating that both candidates’ values align with the union’s.
But Melissa Unger, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 503, told the Capital Chronicle that Chavez-DeRemer’s union recommendations are misleading. Unger introduced Bynum, and representatives from SEIU, the Oregon Education Association and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations were at the news conference in support of Bynum. SEIU represents 72,000 public sector workers and health care providers across Oregon, OEA represents 41,000 educators and AFL-CIO has more than 300,000 Oregon members.
“She may be able to bring in a lot of small union support, but when it comes to working families, they were represented here today and they support Janelle Bynum,” Unger said.
Bynum said as a mother she hears a lot of excuses: She has four children and is juggling political life with her family, going straight from her teenage daughter’s cross-country practice on Saturday to a canvas launch last month.
“I hear a lot of talk,” Bynum said. “I hear a lot of talk from my kids, so I can tell when people are trying to cover up a bad record. I can discern when people are part of an agenda for harm and chaos, rather than an agenda that wants to move America forward.”
Democrats have a lead in voter registrations in the 5th District, which stretches from Bend to Portland, and President Joe Biden won the district by 9 points in 2020 before Chavez-DeRemer’s 2-point victory in 2022.
Marcia Schneider, a volunteer with the Multnomah County Democratic Party, said voters she talks to are more excited about the election than they are in 2022. Schneider is part of the Oregon Democratic Party’s Neighborhood Leaders Program, which recently launched received $125,000 of the Democratic National Committee and trains volunteers to convince their neighbors to vote. All neighborhood leaders receive lists of several dozen addresses in the neighborhood, and their job is to convince their neighbors to fill out and return their ballots.
“I think any sense of complacency that might have been there is gone,” she said. “The urgency of this is evident. People feel like I can’t forget to turn in my ballot, that’s not okay.”
She said she sees growing enthusiasm even within her own family — her sons have been skeptical about voting in the past, but after Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, there was a “palpable” shift.
“Especially from young people we hear: ‘I’m excited. I’m definitely going to vote. This race matters.’” Schneider said. “That really is a huge shift.”
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