Republicans Close to Flipping a House Seat Where Democrats Least Expect it

Beyond the suburbs, there's a lot of open space between Oregon's liberal enclaves of Portland and Salem—the type of regions Republicans, in recent elections, have made their domain.

Both cities voted safely Democratic in 2020. But in the surrounding counties, Democrat Joe Biden only narrowly eked out victories in the more agrarian stretches of countryside that dominate the western landscape. The people of Marion County—where Salem is located—voted for Biden by just 1.2 points more than they did for Republican Donald Trump. In neighboring Polk and Yamhill counties, Trump actually won the popular vote by narrow margins. And in Lynn County, just south of Salem, Trump won by double digits.

Now, the region is home to what has become one of the nation's most unexpectedly competitive U.S. House races.

With a chance to redraw electoral maps after the 2020 census, Democrats sought to design the newly created 6th Congressional District to their party's advantage, taking the strongest-performing pieces of the region in the Portland and Salem suburbs and consolidating them into a district that, on paper, favored Democrats by 13 points. But in a surprisingly strong year for Republicans, even that district now appears to be in jeopardy in a year Democrats can ill afford to lose ground.

On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report moved its rating of the district from a "lean Democratic" seat to a toss-up, citing the strength of Republican Mike Erickson's campaign and the apparently faltering efforts of Elizabeth Warren-backed progressive Andrea Salinas, an Oregon state legislator and a onetime aide to U.S. Senator Harry Reid from Portland's southwestern suburbs.

In recent weeks, Erickson—a perennial candidate in the region who once lost a 1992 congressional race to current Oregon Governor Kate Brown—has spent more than $2 million on television advertisements in the region, with the lion's share of his campaign funded from his own wallet.

However, Erickson has also drawn interest from the National Republican Congressional Committee as part of its Young Guns program, with the NRCC announcing the 6th Congressional District as a target all the way back in June.

Salinas, meanwhile, has gone on the offensive in the campaign, running television advertisements highlighting a 2016 citation that Erickson received for driving under the influence in nearby Hood River County.

That ad, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported, has drawn a cease and desist letter from the Erickson campaign in which his attorneys said the ad could force a judge to overturn the result of the election under an Oregon law that allows elections to be overturned if it is found the winner made a false statement that impacted the outcome.

Erickson has also been dogged by old allegations from nearly two decades ago in which a friend of Erickson's former girlfriend accused Erickson of paying her $300 to get an abortion, claims the campaign has denied, though they were taken seriously enough to derail his 2008 congressional bid.

Salinas has also leaned on national figures like California Congressman Adam Schiff to help campaign for her in recent weeks while others—like Biden himself—have announced unexpected visits to a state once considered a layup for Democratic candidates in a year Republicans have gathered unexpected momentum with independent voters.

"What most people don't realize is that this district has 44 percent non-affiliated voters who are breaking hard for R's across the country," Chuck Adams, a Republican strategist working with the Erickson campaign, wrote in an email to Newsweek. "CD-5 as an example has about half as many non-affiliated voters. This is also a very agricultural district, so it is much more rural than others. How it was drawn in hindsight is actually a bonus for R candidates like Erickson."

Polling in Oregon's gubernatorial race shows Republican Christine Drazan with a narrow lead over Tina Kotek in a hotly competitive, three-way race to govern a state that has remained largely under Democratic control since the late 1950s.

And while the state's U.S. Senate contest is largely favored for incumbent Democrat Ron Wyden, the race for the 6th Congressional District has polled uncharacteristically close, with Salinas' own internal polling showing the race in a virtual tie.

Newsweek has contacted both campaigns for comment.

Update 10/12/2022, 2:50 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with a comment from Republican strategist Chuck Adams.