PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — In their battle for Congress, national Republicans and Democrats are keeping their eyes on the Pacific Northwest, home to two of the most competitive U.S. House races in the country.
Oregon’s GOP-held 5th Congressional District and Washington state’s Democratic Party-held 3rd Congressional District are considered toss-ups, meaning both parties have a good chance of winning.
Both districts are purple — meaning a mix of Republican red and Democratic blue — and contain incumbent freshmen who narrowly flipped their seats in the 2022 midterm elections. And because turnout in presidential elections is typically higher than in midterm elections, political experts say they will keep an eye on which candidates are able to mobilize more voters — especially moderates and independents.
“These races could determine who controls the House of Representatives in the next Congress,” said Chandler James, an associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon. “The Pacific Northwest is kind of the center of a lot of the action.”
Washington’s third congressional district
An intense rematch is playing out in southwest Washington, as first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez defends her seat against Donald Trump-backed Republican Joe Kent. Both candidates try to frame the other as the extreme choice.
The Republican-leaning district with vast farmlands and the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, narrowly went for Trump in 2020, making it a crucial target for the GOP this year.
Gluesenkamp Perez has tried to present himself as an independent-minded moderate. Her actions during her term ranged from co-sponsoring a bill to protect medication abortion to voting for a resolution criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in handling the U.S.-Mexico border. She was also ranked as one of the most bipartisan voting results in the U.S. House by the Lugar Center and the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy.
She outraised Kent, raising $6.7 million compared to his $1.4 million, according to the most recent federal campaign finance data.
Kent, a former Green Beret who has promoted Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, has blamed his opponent for what he sees as bad policies by the Biden administration, including its border policies. He cites inflation and illegal immigration as top concerns, while appearing to tone down some of his more extreme positions. In the past he has called abortion an “evil stain on our humanity” on social media, but on Monday he said in a debate that he does not support a federal ban.
“He says exactly what the pollsters tell him, but we know what he believes,” Gluesenkamp Perez said in response.
Both have immersed themselves in the economic problems facing parts of the region, especially rural areas, said Mark Stephan, an associate professor of political science at Washington State University Vancouver.
“They are both trying to claim that they care more than the other about small communities, rural areas and the economic vitality of Southwest Washington,” he said.
Gluesenkamp Perez came out of nowhere two years ago and narrowly won the seat against Kent, in a district that had not been in Democratic hands for more than a decade. She replaced Jaime Herrera Beutler, a more moderate Republican who lost the 2022 primary in part because she voted to impeach Donald Trump after the January 6 insurrection.
There is no party registration in the state, but presidential primaries require Washington residents to declare a party. During this year’s March primary, Republican voters in the district surpassed Democrats by nearly 30,000. However, a spokesperson for the Foreign Secretary warned that this does not indicate who will win.
Oregon’s 5th congressional district
The boundaries of Oregon’s 5th District were significantly redrawn after the 2020 Census. It includes disparate regions spanning part of Portland and its wealthy, working-class suburbs, as well as rural farming and mountain communities and the fast-growing city of Bend in central Oregon on the other side of the Cascade Range.
During the 2022 midterm elections, the first elections held in the 5th after redistricting, U.S. Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer flipped a seat that had been held by Democrats for about 25 years. But in November she will face another opponent: Janelle Bynum, a state representative who previously defeated her in the district’s legislative elections and has the support and funding of national Democrats.
Bynum was elected to the Oregon House in 2016, representing the suburbs southeast of Portland. She says she would try to codify the abortion protections of the now-overturned Roe v. Wade into federal law if elected.
Before her election to Congress, Chavez-DeRemer was a former mayor of the Portland suburb of Happy Valley and a small business owner. She has endorsed Trump and highlighted her endorsements from law enforcement groups. She says she does not support a national abortion ban, despite previously expressing support for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and its federal abortion protections.
If Bynum wins in November, she will be Oregon’s first black congresswoman. Chavez-DeRemer became the first Latina congresswoman to represent Oregon, joining Democratic U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas in the state’s 6th Congressional District, when both were elected in the 2022 midterm elections.
Democrats have a slight advantage in voter registration in the 5th District, but roughly a third of voters are unaffiliated, and the two candidates have tried to appeal to the district’s purple hue. Bynum describes herself on her campaign website as a “common sense, pragmatic leader,” while Chavez-DeRemer has highlighted her work on bipartisan bills. They have both tried to portray their opponent as extreme or radical.
In terms of campaign fundraising, Chavez-DeRemer has surpassed Bynum, raising about $4 million compared to her opponent’s $2.4 million, the most recent federal campaign finance data shows.
The separate fundraising arms for both parties in the U.S. House of Representatives have each earmarked more than $6 million in ads in the Portland media market, which includes parts of Oregon’s 5th and 3rd districts.
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Golden reported from Seattle.
