Tag Archives: 5th District

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Don’t Count On Allegations of Campaign Financing Foul Play In McLeod-Skinner’s Race Stirring Things Up

Jamie McLeod-Skinner

I’m a political junkie. Have been forever. When I was a kid, i went with my father to drop off Eisenhower/Nixon campaign material at homes in our neighborhood, in the 8th grade a local paper printed my first letter to the editor on a national policy dispute, and my career included serving on the staff of a committee of the House of Representatives. Even now, Lord knows how many political news sites I monitor.

But I’m a peculiar outlier. Face it, most folks could care less about politics most of the time. They ignore day-to-day political drama. A recent Gallup poll found that only 32% of Americans pay close attention to politics.  I think it’s less.

I bring this up because some may think the current dust-up over campaign contributions in the Jamie McLeod-Skinner/Janelle Bynum Democratic primary race in Oregon’s 5th District is going to influence a lot of voters. 

I doubt it.

The Democratic establishment, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Gov. Tina Kotek (D) are backing Bynum. But now a new super PAC, Health Equity Now, has reserved about $352,000 in advertising with spots supporting McLeod-Skinner, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. The ads began running in the Portland market on Wednesday. 

The PAC didn’t register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) until May 3, allowing it to avoid filing information on its donors before the election occurs next Tuesday, May 21.

News media have jumped on the story. OPB said the whole affair is “raising questions about whether Republicans are trying to tilt the scales in the contest.” The Oregon Capital Chronicle Outside reported the outside money money “…spurred accusations from Democrats that Republicans are meddling to ensure incumbent GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer faces a weaker opponent in November. “

ABC News reported a Bynum spokesperson said the ad buys “certainly looks like there are ties to Republicans.” 

“Let us be crystal clear, Jamie McLeod-Skinner is House Republicans’ dream opponent because they know they can beat her — making this shady GOP election meddling in a Democratic primary all the more alarming,” said Blakely Wall, a spokesperson for the Bynum campaign.

So why do I think this tempest won’t much matter?

Sure, there are incessant polls on political opinions, but that doesn’t mean people are constantly paying attention to politics in general or political shenanigans in particular. 

“We often talk about high-information voters versus low-information voters,” Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told Columbia Journalism Review. ” What we leave out is the no-information voter. They’re the ones on social media or watching these crank news shows from the far right.… They actually know less than they would if they didn’t watch news at all. I’m very pessimistic.”

Most Americans think the country is in deeply polarized times, but sixty-five per cent of respondents to a Pew survey last year said that they were “exhausted”, not absorbed,  when thinking about politics. It’s probably worse now.

Even if some of our population have some interest in public policy, it’s hard to find it. A recent New Yorker article referred to when the late Neil Postman, an education scholar at New York University, wrote of the distinction between George Orwell and Alduous Huxley’s visions of the future. “Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us, Postman wrote. “Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

In the Internet/AI age, meaningful political information is “drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” And what does get through is more likely to be disinformation or to stir cynicism. A recent University of Michigan study shows that people regularly on social media were exposed to more political attacks and came away more cynical and distrustful of politic. Instead of becoming more involved, that can make them frustrated, disgruntled and disengaged. 

Then there’s the diminishing availability of real political news. Newspapers, once the main source of such news for everybody from business leaders to rural smalltown farmers, are a dying breed. And many of the ones that survive are on a resources diet. The Oregonian, once a powerful force with statewide coverage, is a shell of its former self. 

And if you are reading this, you are a tiny, and shrinking, part of politically engaged Oregonians.

So don’t be surprised if the hullabaloo about McLeod-Skinner’s fundraising causes barely a ripple in the general public’s views on the campaign. That’s just the way things go.

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DeFazio and Schrader: are they vulnerable in 2018?

What are they smoking?

That was my first thought when I learned Republicans think Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) will be vulnerable in 2018.

The National Republican Congressional Committee’s Chairman Steve Stivers announced on Feb. 8 that DeFazio and Schrader would be among the party’s initial 36 offensive targets in the House of Representatives for the 2018 midterm elections.

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Rep. Peter DeFazio

The Committee’s goal is to keep Republicans in control of the House

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Rep. Kurt Schrader

so they can pursue their agenda in areas such as healthcare reform, a stronger national defense, and job growth.

DeFazio has represented Oregon’s 4th Congressional District since 1987. The district, in the southwest portion of Oregon, includes Coos, Curry, Douglas, Lane, and Linn counties and parts of Benton and Josephine counties.

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Oregon’s 4th District

In his first race, DeFazio won with 54.3 percent of the vote. He won his next 16 races with comfortable leads, with a high of 85.8 percent in 1990 and a low of 54.6 percent in 2010. After a 2011 re-districting gave Democrat-heavy Corvallis to the 4th district, DeFazio won 59.1- 39 percent.

Democrats figured the Corvallis shift guaranteed DeFazio a permanent seat and his seat did seem safe when he won in 2014 with 58.6 percent and in 2016 with 55.5 percent.

Further hurting Republicans has been their failure to put up a strong opponent.

With a weak bench, the Republicans have run the same man, Art Robinson, against DeFazio in each of the past four elections. You’d think they would have learned. The first time, 2010, Robinson lost by 10 points, the second time by 20, the third by 21, the fourth by almost 16.

So, is DeFazio really vulnerable as the National Republican Congressional Committee believes? Maybe.

Consider how Donald Trump did in DeFazio’s district.

Trump handily defeated Hillary Clinton in Coos, Curry, Douglas, Linn and Josephine counties. In Douglas county, Trump racked up 64.6 percent of the vote versus Clinton’s 26.3 percent.

Hillary carried only two liberal enclaves, Lane County, home of the University of Oregon, and part of Benton County, home of Oregon State University, but that was enough.

In the end, Hillary barely carried the 4th District with just 46.1 percent of the vote versus Trump’s 46 percent, a margin of just 554 votes.

That suggests the Republican problem is their candidate and his/her messaging, not the dominance of Democrats.

If the Republicans could recruit a strong moderate candidate able to make persuasive arguments, DeFazio could be in trouble.

As for Schrader, he has represented Oregon’s 5th Congressional District since 2008. The district, in the northwestern portion of Oregon, includes Lincoln, Marion, Polk, and Tillamook counties as well as portions of Benton, Clackamas, and Multnomah counties.

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Oregon’s 5th District

In his first race, Schrader won with 54 percent of the vote. He won his subsequent races with 51.3 percent, 54 percent, 53.7 percent, and 53.5 percent. In 2011, the Oregon State Legislature approved a new map of congressional districts based on updated population information from the 2010 census, but it hasn’t had a meaningful impact on Schrader.

In 2016, Trump took Marion, Polk and Tillamook counties. Clinton carried Lincoln, Benton, Clackamas, and Multnomah counties, winning heavily populated Multnomah 73.3 to 17 percent. In the end, Clinton carried the 5th District with 48.3 percent of the vote versus Trump’s 44.1 percent.

Schrader’s winning margins to date have been consistent and comfortable, but not breathtaking. They would likely have been higher without the presence of multiple other party candidates in the general elections, who have been draining principally liberal votes. In 2016, for example, the Pacific Green Party took 3.4 percent of the votes. In 2014, three other parties captured a total of 6.7 percent of the vote.

Although voter registration trends aren’t consistently matching actual election trends, Schrader’s district is becoming increasingly Democratic, though also more non-affiliated.

In Nov. 2012, there were 158,885 registered Democrats, 148,464 Republicans and 89,539 non-affiliated voters in the district. By Nov. 2016, it had shifted to 176,868 registered Democrats, 155,430 registered Republicans and 135,233 non-affiliated voters.

Is Schrader as vulnerable as the National Republican Congressional Committee believes? I don’t think so. Even though he’s been in Congress fewer terms than DeFazio, his district is likely safer for a Democrat, and becoming more so.

How about DeFazio?

I know, he’s been in office for 30 years and just keeps rolling along, seemingly invincible. But I think he’s more vulnerable than he looks. He hasn’t so much been winning as the Republicans have been losing with uninspiring, ideologically rigid candidates.

My advice to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Don’t divide your limited resources in an effort to capture both seats. Instead, focus on finding a strong moderate candidate to run against DeFazio in 2018, building a war chest sufficient for a credible race and running a sophisticated campaign.

Dennis Richardson showed a Republican can win in Oregon. If the right things fall in place, the 4th District could be next.