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New ballot returns Thursday evening showed Forest Grove educator Myrna Muñoz has unseated state Sen. Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro) in a Washington County legislative race that became a referendum on education funding, labor power, and data centers.
Muñoz declared victory shortly after a new batch of ballots showed her leading Sollman by 5.5 percentage points in the Senate District 15 contest. “Tonight, this community reminded our representatives who calls the shots around here,” Muñoz said in a statement. “We organized, we came together, and we took our power back. Together, we win.”
Sollman issued a statement conceding the race.
“The election didn’t go the way we hoped,” she wrote. “To the community members of Senate District 15, it has been the honor of my life to represent you. From the Hillsboro School Board to the Oregon House to the Senate, you have trusted me for nearly a decade of public service, and I have tried, every single day, to be worthy of that trust.”
The District 15 race was perhaps the most watched legislative primary in the state—and certainly the most expensive—because it pitted an incumbent lawmaker against the interest groups that are usually Democrats’ biggest backers.
Environmental activists and public employee unions funded Muñoz’s challenge to Sollman because they disagreed with several of the positions she’d taken in recent legislative sessions. Those included Sollman’s vote against Senate Bill 916, which grants unemployment to striking public employees, and a recent effort to lead an education spending reform effort through Senate Bill 1555.
Sollman’s Senate colleagues backed her with healthy contributions. To political observers, the race was a test of the Democratic Party’s ascendant left flank against its establishment.
Much of the advertising voters saw, however, focused on the issue that caused the Oregon League of Conservation Voters to break ranks with Sollman: data centers. Sollman attempted to bring rural land inside the metro area’s urban growth boundary for industrial uses in a bill she brought to the recent short session: Senate Bill 1586. This idea, quickly abandoned, placed her in the crosshairs of advocates who oppose data centers, though the bill itself would have only allowed them on the relevant land as an “accessory” to other uses. Muñoz called for a moratorium on data centers in Washington County and made the issue central to her campaign.
Also in Washington County, Beaverton School Board member Tammy Carpenter extended her lead over Beaverton City Council member Ashley Hartmeier-Prigg for the seat in House District 27. Carpenter, an anesthesiologist and a Democratic Socialist, leads by 4.4 percentage points.
“My platform is built from what I am hearing from the community,” Carpenter said in a statement declaring victory. “I’ve talked to voters from nearly all backgrounds and experiences, and it is clear that the real fight is between the 1% and the 99%.”
In House District 38, state Rep. Daniel Nguyen (D-Lake Oswego) easily defeated middle school teacher John Wasielewski, who was backed by unions.
That means of three races seen as tests of the Democratic Party’s leftists against its centrists, the left has won two.
