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House District 31
Darcey Edwards - Republican
This rural swath of Washington and Columbia counties, stretching from Banks to the Columbia River, is currently represented by Brian Stout, who isn’t seeking reelection after a former campaign volunteer accused him of sexual abuse—a shameful episode for the GOP in a part of the state where Democrats don’t win.
There’s only one candidate mounting a halfway serious campaign to replace him. Darcey Edwards, 54, a Banks real estate agent, says she’s running for the seat to bring manufacturing back to rural Washington County. She hasn’t fleshed out the details of how she’d do it. Perhaps more logging. Her website offers a slew of party-line policy proposals, including repealing Measure 110 and eliminating zoning requirements. And she told WW she couldn’t remember whom she voted for in the last presidential election. Still, she earns our nod: Her opponent, Aaron Hall, hasn’t filed a Voters’ Pamphlet statement and is AWOL in all other regards. Public servants are apparently hard to find in Columbia County.
Who’d play Edwards in a movie? Genie Francis.
House District 33
Shannon Jones Isadore - Democrat
State Rep. Maxine Dexter, who’s held this seat for the past two terms, is running for Congress. Three candidates seek to take her place as the Democratic nominee—who is all but certain to win the seat in November, given the voter registration in this West Portland district, which runs from the Portlandia statue up past the St. Johns Bridge.
Pete Grabiel, 44, is an environmental and business lawyer whose top priority is cracking down on public drug use. Brian Duty, 47, is a surgeon and administrator who sets strategy for Oregon Health & Science University. The teaching hospital is Oregon’s largest employer, and in several respects Duty is the logical successor to Dexter: a physician who can speak knowledgeably about health policy.
But there’s another possibility in this contest. Shannon Jones Isadore, 52, is a former Marine and investment broker who has accomplished the public health equivalent of taking an enemy beachhead: She founded a nonprofit that opened a 37-bed drug and mental health outpatient facility in the Lloyd District. Oregon Change Clinic, which specializes in helping BIPOC people in recovery, is exactly the kind of response to Portland’s addiction disaster that the state needs to replicate a hundredfold. With lawmakers abandoning the Measure 110 experiment, Jones Isadore can provide a road map of what to do next. For that reason, we give her the narrow edge over Duty. She’s keenly needed in Salem now.
Who’d play Jones Isadore onscreen? Gabrielle Union.
House District 33
Dick Courter - Republican
Democrats outnumber Republicans in this Northwest Portland district by more than 7 to 1, so the outcome of this primary is unlikely to make the eventual Democratic nominee break a sweat. The two candidates here, to put it politely, have some mileage on their odometers. Stan Baumhofer, 95, won the GOP nomination for this seat in 2022, losing to Maxine Dexter in the general election 85% to 15%. Baumhofer brings some political experience to the race—he served as an aide to Portland Mayor Connie McCready in 1979 and 1980—but we’ll give the nod to his opponent, Dick Courter, 81, a forestry consultant. Courter, who says he last ran for office (a Metro Council seat) in the 1970s, is still actively advising private timber owners on harvesting strategies, tax implications and other issues relevant to forest policy. He’s the choice to challenge whichever Democrat emerges.
Who’d play Courter on film? Omar Sharif.
House District 35
Farrah Chaichi - Democrat
If nothing else, Rep. Farrah Chaichi’s first term demonstrated that she sticks to her principles. Representing a district that spreads west from downtown Beaverton, Chaichi, 38, who has a job as an intake coordinator at the Stoel Rives law firm, suffered the usual rookie stumbles, compounded by an activist’s inflexibility. She displayed a picture of Karl Marx in her Capitol office, a tidy metaphor for her refusal to tone down her left-wing ideals. She was the lone lawmaker to vote against recriminalizing fentanyl, and was the sole sponsor of a bill that proposed granting the right to camp on any public land. It’s reasonable to wonder if much of her suburban district knows what she’s championing.
Unfortunately, her primary opponent is not a plausible alternative. Casey Zimmerman, 38, is a pleasant guy who entered the race late, hasn’t participated in local government, and proffers no platform. What’s more, he is the sales director for a military contractor, Phenix Solutions, that builds and sells weaponized drones. That’s a line of work Zimmerman hasn’t fully disclosed in his campaign and could not coherently defend. Send Chaichi back to Salem, and hope that she can develop the knack for pragmatic leftism that her mentor, Rep. Khanh Pham, already shows.
Who’d play Chaichi in a movie? “Sometimes I feel like I channel Dixie Carter à la Julia Sugarbaker.”
House District 37
Jules Walters - Democrat
Jules Walters won election in this solidly Democratic suburban House district in 2022 after serving two years as West Linn’s mayor. Her first term in the Legislature was mostly unremarkable, as she tended to issues of pressing concern in Tualatin and West Linn. Walters, 53, was one of only two representatives who voted against Gov. Tina Kotek’s sweeping housing package in the last legislative session. Walters did so because it would force West Linn to expand its urban growth boundary, something she says her constituents don’t want. Walters is also a devoted foe of highway tolling, which Kotek shelved in March after mounting pressure from lawmakers.
Walters faces a primary challenge from Brian Maguire, 55, the CEO of a software company. Despite running as a Democrat, Maguire has given close to $400,000 in recent years to state and federal Republicans and GOP political action committees. Maguire says he’s running because he wants to protect the environment—which is a tough sell, given his repeated contributions to Trump-backing Republicans.
We’ll take Walters’ constituent service over whatever Maguire is doing.
Who’d play Walters in a movie? Sandra Bullock.
House District 40
Michael Steven Newgard - Republican
This district, which includes Gladstone, Jennings Lodge and parts of Oregon City, saw one of the Legislature’s tightest races in 2022: Democrat Annessa Hartman won by just 181 votes, half a percent of the votes cast. Redistricting slightly eroded Democrats’ advantage from 9.7 percentage points in 2022 to 9.3% now—but as the 2022 results show, the district performs like a toss-up.
So the GOP primary matters. Sue Leslie, an Oregon City resident who has been a small business owner, telecoms contractor and real estate agent, is running against Michael Steven Newgard, a Milwaukie resident who works in the Clackamas County Clerk’s Office and flies helicopters for the Oregon National Guard in his spare time. Both have similar platforms: tough on crime and government spending. Both have raised similar amounts of money (about $20,000, Leslie mostly from herself). We give the nod to Newgard, 40, whose record of civic engagement, beginning in student government at Oregon State University and extending to the nuts and bolts of local affairs on local boards and the Clackamas County property tax appeals board, shows a stronger commitment to public service.
Who’d play Newgard on film? Tom Cruise.
House District 44
Travis Nelson - Democrat
The choice for this district, which runs along Portland’s northern city limits from Kelley Point Park to the airport, is no contest. We mean that in the most literal way. Christine Nair, the Dale Carnegie leadership coach challenging incumbent Rep. Travis Nelson, told us: “I really do hope our constituents vote for Travis.”
That about settles it.
Nelson, a registered nurse appointed to fill Gov. Tina Kotek’s vacant seat when she ran for governor in 2022, is running to retain it after an impressive first two years in the Legislature.
Nelson, 45, was a longtime labor union leader at the Oregon Nurses Association before joining the Legislature. His first term is most remembered for a controversy over state troopers twice pulling him over as he drove home from the Capitol, which he said was evidence of racial bias. But he also notched substantive wins: Nelson was a critical negotiator in getting both labor unions and major hospitals like Oregon Health & Science University and Providence to agree to a bill that requires hospitals to have minimum nurse-to-patient ratios beginning in 2026 to improve staffing.
Nelson’s years of nursing experience make him a valuable voice. The state’s greatest problems—homelessness, mental and behavioral health, addiction treatment—are all intertwined with our health care system.
Already, Nelson has shown his legislative chops. We hope he continues to do so in a second term.
Who’d play Nelson on film? The rapper Travis Scott, because WW once, mortifyingly, referred to Nelson by that name in a newsletter.
House District 46
Willy Chotzen - Democrat
District 46, which stretches from Mount Tabor in Southeast Portland south to Lents, is seeing its state representative, Khanh Pham, graduate to the Senate. But voters in the Democratic stronghold shouldn’t fret: Both competitors in this year’s primary are compelling candidates.
Our choice is Willy Chotzen, 33, a former middle school teacher and Harvard-trained lawyer who’s a chief attorney at the downtown public defense firm Metropolitan Public Defenders. Chotzen says he’s seen enough of the consequences of homelessness, addiction and mental illness on Portland’s streets to bring a unique perspective to the Legislature. “I think voters are hungry for people with the hands-on experience,” he says.
His opponent, Mary Lou Hennrich, 76, ran for this seat unsuccessfully in 2006. A former nurse, she became the first CEO of CareOregon and then led the Oregon Public Health Institute. She’s now retired.
These are two people with perspectives worth adding to the Legislature. But as Oregon tries to wipe up the mess after gutting Measure 110 and grapples with a shortage of public defenders, it would be helpful to have someone on hand who’s done that job. Vote Chotzen.
Who’d play Chotzen in a movie? Lin Manuel Miranda.
House District 48
Hoa Nguyen - Democrat
State Rep. Hoa Nguyen (D-East Portland) is a first-term member of the House, representing a district that she likes to say “stretches from Kelly Butte to Powell Butte and Barton to Carver.” Nguyen, 39, a student engagement specialist for the Clackamas Education Service District, passed legislation this past term that will focus resources on Asian Pacific Islanders, a group with among the highest rates of absenteeism, and provide alternative transportation options for students ineligible for buses. She also serves on the David Douglas School Board. Her opponent, oncology nurse Elizabeth Petersen, 54, wants to bring more focus to environmental protections and the provision of mental health services, but she failed to make a convincing case she’d do a better job than Nguyen.
Who’d play Nguyen on film? Kelly Marie Tran.
House District 48
Andrew Morrison - Republican
John Masterman ran for this seat last time, and almost won, despite the big Democratic voter registration advantage in the district. Masterman, a transmission shop owner from Damascus, is running again, but his opponent, Andrew Morrison, 42, a sales manager for a Silicon Valley tech security firm, brings a stronger level of civic engagement—he’s been a Damascus city councilor and served on the Legacy Mount Hood hospital foundation board. His professional and volunteer work have attracted a strong list of endorsements, including by an influential Democrat in the district, former state Rep. Greg Matthews (D-Gresham), and House Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich (R-Hood River). We look forward to seeing Morrison match up against Nguyen.
Who’d play Morrison on film? Ed Norton.
House District 51
Christine Drazan - Republican
For a few weeks in 2022, polls suggested former House Minority Leader Christine Drazan would be Oregon’s next governor. Obviously, that didn’t happen. But the healthy scare that Drazan gave Tina Kotek was the culmination of her rapid rise to the top of Oregon’s GOP. For a few legislative sessions, Drazan, 51, was Kotek’s most formidable nemesis—and lent House Republicans a seriousness they’ve lacked since.
Drazan gave up her seat, representing rural Clackamas County from Canby to Estacada, to run for governor. She was replaced by James Hieb, a former Marine who works in his family’s child care business. Hieb, 38, helped pass a much-needed bill to aid people with traumatic brain injuries. He also embarrassed his office by getting arrested for disorderly conduct while visibly intoxicated at the Clackamas County Fair.
Drazan, who, since her run for governor, founded a nonprofit advocating for conservative causes and still runs it, wants back in. Her return would mark a significant leveling up. The district—and the Republican Party—should welcome her back.