The top US House races in Oregon garnering national attention

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — One of the most competitive U.S. House races in the country is playing out in Oregon, where the state’s GOP-held 5th Congressional District is among just over two dozen seats nationwide that are considered toss ups.

Two other House races in the state’s 4th and 6th districts, though less competitive, will also be closely watched as Democrats and Republicans battle for control of Congress. And in each contest, freshman female lawmakers are seeking reelection.

Here are the tightest House races in the state:

5th Congressional District

Republicans are looking to maintain a seat they flipped red during the 2022 midterms for the first time in roughly 25 years. But freshman U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer is facing a different Democratic opponent this November: Janelle Bynum, a state representative who has previously beat her in legislative elections in the district and is backed and funded by national Democrats.

The seat is seen as a toss up by the Cook Political Report, meaning either party has a good chance of winning. Outside groups have poured millions of dollars into the race.

Chavez-DeRemer narrowly won her seat in 2022 in the first election held in the district after its boundaries were significantly redrawn following the 2020 census. It now encompasses disparate regions spanning metro Portland and its wealthy and working-class suburbs, as well as rural agricultural and mountain communities and the fast-growing central Oregon city of Bend on the other side of the Cascade Range.

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Unaffiliated voters represent the largest constituency, although registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by about 25,000. Both parties are hoping that the higher voter turnout typically seen during presidential election years, compared to midterm elections, will energize their base.

A small part of the district is in Multnomah County, where a ballot box just outside the county elections office in Portland was set on fire by an incendiary device about a week before the election, damaging three ballots. Authorities said that enough material from the incendiary device was recovered to show that the Portland fire was also connected to two other ballot drop box fires in neighboring Vancouver, Washington, one of which occurred on the same day and damaged hundreds of ballots.

6th Congressional District

Oregon’s newest congressional district, the 6th, is seen as a likely win for Democrats compared to the 5th, according to the Cook Political Report. This gives a slight advantage to incumbent U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, a Democrat who is running once again against Mike Erickson, a Republican she defeated in the 2022 midterms by roughly 2.5 percentage points.

Salinas has far outraised Erickson, with over $5 million in campaign contributions compared to his roughly $545,000, the most recent federal campaign finance records show.

Salinas and Chavez-DeRemer became the first Latina members of Congress to represent Oregon when they were elected in the 2022 midterms.

Erickson is the founder and CEO of a shipping and logistics consulting company. It’s his fourth time running for Congress.

The boundaries of the 6th District were created during redistricting after the 2020 census. The district includes the state capital Salem and parts of Portland’s affluent southwestern suburbs. And while it also spans rural areas across a broad swath of the Willamette Valley, President Joe Biden would have carried it by about 13 points in 2020.

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4th Congressional District

Democratic freshman U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle is seeking reelection in the 4th District, which spans the southern half of the state’s coast and includes rural, mountainous communities and the more populous, liberal college towns of Eugene and Corvallis.

She’s running against Republican Monique DeSpain, who served in the U.S. Air Force for three decades, largely as a military lawyer, according to her website. DeSpain has never held elected office and has pitched herself as an “outsider” candidate.

The district, which hasn’t elected a Republican to the House since 1972, is seen as a likely win for Democrats, according to the Cook Political Report.

Hoyle had outraised DeSpain by about $1.6 million as of mid-October, but Republican-affiliated groups still spent heavily in their bid to flip the seat, federal campaign finance records show. The fundraising arm of U.S. House Republicans, the National Republican Congressional Committee, spent some $375,000 on ads opposing Hoyle.