Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been declared the winner of the election in Oregon’s 5th U.S. Congressional District, taking a critical House seat necessary for Republicans to win the majority.
The Associated Press called the race on Sunday, projecting Chavez-DeRemer the winner of a seat that was previously held for seven terms by moderate Democrat Rep. Kurt Schrader.
The GOP targeted the district, seeing it as vulnerable after the long-time incumbent was defeated in the Democrat primary by a radical progressive candidate, Jamie McLeod-Skinner.
Chavez-DeRemer was able to defeat far-left McLeod-Skinner in the general election, receiving 51.1% of the votes compared to the Democrat’s 48.9% with 94% reporting, according to the AP.
“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,” the outlet noted. “Democrats still hold a slight advantage in voter registration, but both campaigns focused on the roughly one-third of unaffiliated voters in the district.”
BREAKING: Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer wins election to U.S. House in Oregon's 5th Congressional District. #APracecall at 2:20 p.m. PST. https://t.co/2nlgpjzI1K
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 13, 2022
It still appears as if Republicans will take control of the House, with the New York Times election map showing the GOP holding 212 seats compared to the Democrats’ 204 as of Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have been projected to regain their slim majority in the Senate after the Nevada Senate race was called for incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV) over her challenger, Republican Adam Laxalt, on Friday evening.
Democrats are still holding onto hope that they could potentially hold the House, but election expert Dave Wasserman says that those hopes are far-reaching considering 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,” he tweeted over the weekend.
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.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 13, 2022
Meanwhile, people are questioning why it is taking so long for these elections to be decided, as many races have taken multiple days to be decided — and several, including races in Arizona and California, are still waiting for ballots to be counted.
