Chavez-DeRemer Leads McLeod-Skinner in Race for Oregon’s U.S. House District 5

The race was tough to predict before the election as GOP candidates surged nationwide.

Chavez-DeRemer (Mick Hangland-Skill)
By Anthony Effinger

Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the former mayor of Happy Valley, led Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner in the race for U.S. House District 5 as Republicans across the country capitalized on voters’ discontent with inflation.

Chavez-DeRemer led McLeod-Skinner 52.65% to 47.08% with 204,687 votes counted.

McLeod-Skinner is behind Chavez-DeRemer in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 25,000 votes, or 5 percentage points.

McLeod-Skinner ran in the 5th District in part because redistricting shifted the district away from the Oregon Coast and toward Bend and Central Oregon, where McLeod-Skinner showed unprecedented strength in a previous House race.

While McLeod-Skinner savaged Schrader in debates, Chavez-DeRemer ran more as his successor, claiming more centrist positions along with more extreme ones, including that critical race theory teaches kids “to hate each other.”

When President Joe Biden came to Oregon for a second time in October, Chavez-DeRemer called the visit “a desperate attempt to bail out vulnerable Democrats like my extreme, progressive opponent.”



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