Mediaboss Marketing

Democratic candidates running for Oregons three open seats in the U.S. House will get extra help from a special Red to Blue program run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Oregon has just one solidly Republican congressional district and Democrats have an edge in all three of the targeted districts, which are the states new 6th District and the redrawn 4th and 5th districts.

However, as Democrats strategize how to hold onto control of the U.S. House, or at least minimize their losses, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees selection of the three Oregon candidates for its Red to Blue program shows the state plays a central role. Only 25 Democratic congressional candidates have so far been selected.

This slate of Democratic candidates Val Hoyle, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, and Andrea Salinas are proven champions for Oregon families and will fight for a strong economy, good-paying jobs, affordable health care, and a womans right to choose, committee spokesperson Johanna Warshaw wrote in a press release. The DCCC looks forward to working alongside them to help ensure their victory this November.

Hoyle, labor commissioner and a former longtime state lawmaker, is running for Oregons 4th U.S. House seat and will face Republican Alek Skarlatos, a former Army National Guard soldier who became widely known after he helped thwart a terrorist attack on a European train in 2015.

Skarlatos also ran for Congress in 2020 and lost to U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio by around 25,000 votes. Democrats advantage grew in the new congressional lines that state lawmakers drew in 2021, and The Oregonian/OregonLive has described the 4th District as a safe Democratic seat. Still, Skarlatos is well-funded and well-known. He played himself in a movie based on the attempted terrorist attack and competed on the television show Dancing with the Stars. He is currently a senior fellow at the Freedom Foundation, which pays him to advocate for forestry management policies, according to its website.

The 6th District Democratic candidate, state Rep. Andrea Salinas, of Lake Oswego, is a former congressional staffer and state lobbyist who led House Democrats redistricting work last year. She won a closely watched primary in May in which outside groups, including at least one connected to a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency billionaire, spent more than $12 million to support political newcomer Carrick Flynn. If elected in November, Salinas would become the first Latina member of Congress from Oregon. According to The Oregonian/OregonLives analysis of the new district last year, it tilts in Democrats favor.

The most competitive new congressional district for Democrats is the 5th District, which is a virtual 50-50 tie in terms of how voters drawn into the district have sided in key Republican-Democratic match-ups since 2015, an analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows.

In the 5th District, Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner defeated longtime U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader in the May primary and will now face Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who owns an anesthesiology business with her husband and is the former mayor of Happy Valley. Like Salinas, she would be the first Latina member of Congress from Oregon. McLeod-Skinner is an attorney whos worked as an emergency response coordinator and city planner.

National Republicans are also focused on Oregon and on Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee selected Chavez-DeRemer as one of its Young Gun candidates, which the committee describes as a program to support candidates in competitive districts who have built a winning campaign infrastructure.

Our campaign won decisively in the primary because of our strong grassroots efforts, and we now head into the general election with tremendous momentum to bring commonsense solutions to D.C., " Chavez-DeRemer said in a press release.

-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@oregonian.com; @HBorrud

See the rest here:
National Democrats will focus on three Oregon congressional races in bid to hold onto U.S. House - OregonLive