Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer Wins in Oregon

Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer won a critical U.S. House seat in Oregon necessary to win the majority over Democrats.

Called by the Associated Press on Sunday, Chavez-DeRemer won her race in Oregon’s 5th U.S. Congressional District, beating out Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner. Per the Associated Press (AP):

Chavez-DeRemer’s victory makes her the first Latina congresswoman from Oregon, a distinction also sought by 6th District Democratic candidate Andrew Salinas. That race remained too early to call.

The district was previously held for seven terms by moderate Democrat Rep. Kurt Schrader and was targeted by the GOP, which saw the 5th as vulnerable after the long-time incumbent’s primary defeat by progressive candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner.

The 5th was significantly redrawn following the 2020 U.S. Census to include parts of more conservative central Oregon, and trended slightly less blue this election. Democrats still hold a slight advantage in voter registration, but both campaigns focused on the roughly one-third of unaffiliated voters in the district.

Republicans failed to win control of the U.S. Senate this weekend when Adam Laxalt lost his race against Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto in the state of Nevada. Though Democrats have floated the idea of possibly retaining the U.S. House, election expert Dave Wasserman said those hopes are far-reaching given the current numbers.

“Seeing quite a few ‘Dems are on track to hold the House’ takes from partisan accounts without any seat-by-seat evidence to back it up. It’s close, but at this writing Dems aren’t hitting the rates they’d need to in the unresolved CA seats to get to 218,” Wasserman tweeted over the weekend.

New York Times political analyst Nate Cohn likewise tweeted, “Yesterday’s CA ballots, yet again, were still good but not good enough for Dems. Lots of votes left, but Dems now need to do 7-12 pts better in the remaining vote in CA41/CA45/CA27 than they have done in the post-election count so far. That goes up every day it doesn’t happen.”