Oregonians largely opt for the familiar in primary

Both Democrats and Republicans in Oregon's 2024 primary opted for the familiar. (Getty Images)

After all the primary campaign season drama this year, most of the Oregon results tended toward the familiar in both parties. 

And most races weren’t even close. 

On Tuesday, Oregon had two relatively critical Democratic primary contests, in ways important both locally and nationally that  collected plenty of attention in the state and beyond. Both were resolved sharply, by strong margins that reflected the sensibilities of Oregon’s – and the nation’s – Democratic leadership. 

In Oregon’s 3rd House District, seven candidates were competing to replace veteran U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, but the race clearly was going to come down to two: state Rep. Maxine Dexter and former Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal. Dexter has been a productive legislator working smoothly with Democratic leadership, while Jayapal was perhaps best known as the sister of a member of Congress from Seattle, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who is one of the most visible and sometimes controversial progressives in the House. 

Dexter got the mass of support from contributors and Democratic-leaning organizations, and her lopsided win – about twice the number of votes Jayapal received – looked like a clear demonstration of Democratic organization clout. 

In Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, one of the half-dozen top battleground districts nationally this year, the Democratic nominee from two years ago, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, faced state legislator Janelle Bynum, each seeking to take on first-term Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer. McLeod-Skinner only narrowly lost to Chavez-DeRemer last time, and the primary contest was widely described as competitive, with the sole public poll giving Bynum a slight lead. 

On election day, Bynum’s lead wasn’t slight at all. In results on Tuesday night, she led McLeod-Skinner in five of the six counties, with only one vote reported in that race in Jefferson County, and that was for McLeod-Skinner. Overall, Bynum led by more than two to one. Some of that probably had to do with negative headlines for McLeod-Skinner in the last few months, and reports that Republican-backed money was supporting her in an effort to elect a weaker candidate in November. But the larger factor may have been a solid weighing-in of the Democratic establishment, from Gov. Tina Kotek on down, on Bynum’s behalf. 

If one trend line ran through most of the notable Oregon primary results on Tuesday, it might have been the absence of revolt against the powers that be.

In the top statewide race, for Secretary of State, speculation had run in favor of the well-established Treasurer Tobias Read, who two years ago had experience running for governor. On Tuesday, he drew a stunningly wide lead, winning about 70% of the vote in the Democratic primary over his chief opponent, Democratic state Sen. James Manning. The margin of the Democratic legislator seeking to replace him, state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, against a candidate who had run for the office twice before, Jeff Gudman, was even larger – 77%.

The familiar and the established mostly did well on the Republican side, too. In the 1st Senate District on the southern Oregon coast, a determined effort to take out incumbent Sen. David Brock Smith fell far short as he received twice the vote of the nearest of his three competitors. In the 2nd Senate District in Josephine and parts of Douglas and Jackson counties, Noah Robinson, the son of incumbent Art Robinson, decisively won the nomination for the seat there. And in the 28th Senate District in Klamath County, Diane Linthicum, the wife of Dennis Linthicum, the incumbent and the Republican secretary of state nominee, was winning easily. 

The most striking but not surprising result in the whole state may have been in the 12th House District in rural Lane County, where incumbent Rep. Charlie Conrad, a Dexter Republican who split from his party on a vote concerning abortion and gender care, was getting only about a fifth of the vote against Darin Harbick, a challenger opposing him mainly on that issue. 

There, as elsewhere, the message seemed to be: Stick with the party line or it may line up against you. 

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