Oregon’s new sixth Congressional District doesn’t have an incumbent candidate, however it has two well-known opponents.
Distinguished Democratic state legislator Andrea Salinas faces businessman and frequent Republican candidate Mike Erickson within the Nov. 8 normal election. Structure Celebration candidate Larry McFarland can also be working for the seat.
Oregon was given a sixth congressional district after the 2020 census mirrored the state’s inhabitants development.
The district was drawn with a major benefit for the Democratic Celebration. President Joe Biden carried 55% of the vote within the district to Donald Trump’s 42% within the 2020 election.
Salinas was one of many chairs of the committee that got here up with the Congressional and legislative maps.
The non-partisan Prepare dinner Report charges the race as “Lean Democratic.”
The district consists of Salem, Woodburn and Polk County cities together with Dallas, Monmouth and Independence. It additionally consists of Yamhill County cities together with McMinnville and Newberg, and Washington and Clackamas county cities together with Tigard, Tualatin and Wilsonville.
The race acquired nationwide consideration through the major, and continues to because the events battle over energy within the U.S. Home of Representatives.
Throughout the major, the narrative surrounded how one of many unsuccessful Democratic candidate’s campaigns was bankrolled by a tech entrepreneur. Within the normal election, the district has been getting consideration as polls have proven Erickson main.
Andrea Salinas
Salinas doesn’t stand on the steps that will elevate her above her supporters outdoors a espresso store in Tigard.
She doesn’t shrink back from the experiences her detractors use to name her a “profession politician” for her 5 years in public workplace (she was appointed to the Legislature to symbolize Lake Oswego in 2017 and received elections in 2018 and 2020).
Salinas talks about interning for Sen. Diane Feinstein and dealing on the staffs of Sen. Harry Reid and Congressmen Pete Stark and Darlene Hooley, and the way their work helps to maintain folks housed and protects them with issues like paid household medical depart.
Salinas overcame an enormous funding deficit within the Democratic major to defeat a big area of challengers with 36% of the vote. Carrick Flynn, whose marketing campaign acquired greater than $11 million from crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, got here in a distant second with 18%.
“I’m excited and I’m actually optimistic,” mentioned Salinas, who is also the Working Households and Impartial Celebration nominee. “We all the time knew it was going to be a tough race. I by no means thought it was going to be, you understand, a simple slam dunk.”
Carrying her trademark purple-framed glasses, Salinas continues her discuss to her constituents as two folks strolling canines 100 toes away get right into a struggle and the police arrive.
She talks about how the racial make-up of the district is 20% Latino and the way she sponsored the invoice within the state Legislature in 2022 that subsequent 12 months will provide overtime pay for agricultural workers.
Amongst her endorsements are Sen. Ron Wyden, Gov. Kate Brown and Salem-Keizer Public Faculties governing board chair Ashley Carson Cottingham.
Salinas factors out that rather a lot differentiates her from Erickson.
“I feel I proceed to speak about a few of the points that I’ve labored on and actually present a distinction between me and my opponent,” Salinas mentioned.
Mike Erickson
Erickson thinks he has a rash from poison oak. He calls early for a cellphone interview and explains he needed to go to a physician that morning to get therapy. He says it hasn’t derailed his heavy campaigning schedule.
Erickson, a former kicker and punter at Portland State College, has been touring highschool soccer video games, together with ones at West Salem, South Salem and Dallas, in addition to hitting each truthful and neighborhood gathering he can discover to fulfill voters.
“We put a ton of effort in and I feel that’s why we’re forward within the polls proper now,” he mentioned. “We’ve acquired an actual robust floor marketing campaign and I’m simply working my tail off from 7 within the morning till 10 at night time.”
Erickson received out within the massive Republican major in Could, accumulating a commanding 34% of the vote. State Rep. Ron Noble had about half of Erickson’s votes with 17%.
Erickson, who has run a number of unsuccessful campaigns for the state Legislature and Congress, is the founder and proprietor of Tigard-based AFMS, which advises corporations on delivery all through the world.
In 2016, Erickson was pulled over in Hood River County and later pleaded responsible to driving underneath the affect of intoxicants, although he later accomplished a diversion program to have the case dismissed. Police additionally discovered prescription capsules in his pocket.
“I used to be at a marriage, acquired pulled over. I made a mistake, I believed I used to be nice. Generally you assume you’re nice to drive and I used to be off by .04. I made a mistake and I went by means of all of the courses and I acquired it dismissed,” he mentioned. “The opposite half was my spouse didn’t wish to carry a handbag, she had some surgical procedure and he or she requested me to hold some ache capsules. She didn’t wish to carry a bottle, she wished me to hold one or two in a plastic bag. When the district lawyer heard that story, they mentioned, present me a prescription bottle and it was your spouse’s and we’ll dismiss it, they usually did.”
Erickson has been endorsed by Marion County Commissioner Kevin Cameron, former Beaverton police chief David Bishop and the Nationwide Federation of Impartial Companies.
“I’m a businessman who desires to go to D.C. to get outcomes for the folks on this district in Oregon,” he mentioned. “I don’t have a private political agenda like many politicians. I wish to do what’s proper to resolve our most essential issues going through this state.”
Police funding
Salinas and Erickson say they’ve fathers who have been police gives for 30 years. They each discuss how they didn’t know if their fathers would come house from work.
Erickson mentioned he would vote in opposition to any payments “which are tender on crime and forestall regulation enforcement from doing their job on the federal degree. That’s the very first thing I might do.”
However he additionally talked rather a lot about Salinas’ voting report and alleges she helped “defund the police,” mentioning three particular payments she supported.
“These three issues proper there are crucial to regulation enforcement doing their job and he or she voted in opposition to these within the state Legislature,” Erickson mentioned. “I might have by no means voted for these.”
Erickson factors to Senate Bill 110, which requires law enforcement officials to tell folks they’ve stopped of their proper to refuse to be searched; House Bill 3164, which modifies the crime of interfering with an officer; and House Bill 2002, which awards grants for restorative justice.
Salinas known as the accusation “patently false.”
“I didn’t defund the police and I discovered it truly very offensive,” she mentioned of the feedback.
In line with state data, Salinas voted for the funds that elevated funding for Oregon State Police to $855.3 million for the 2021-23 funds, up $34.2 million from the prior biennium and a rise of 20 positions.
“I might by no means take away the sources for our regulation enforcement or our first responders to do their jobs and do them nicely,” she mentioned.
Abortion rights
Salinas says she helps entry to abortion; Erickson stops wanting saying that he’s in opposition to abortion, however mentioned he believed the Supreme Court docket struck down Roe vs. Wade.
Salinas mentioned in September she, “helped to go the 2017 reproductive well being fairness act and since that point have been attempting to determine a technique to implement it in a manner that’s efficient for all Oregonians who want reproductive well being care.”
However the Oregon Legislature handed that invoice previous to her being appointed to the physique. She was working for lobbying agency Methods 360 at the moment. She and the lobbying agency didn’t present testimony on the invoice, in keeping with state data and movies of public hearings about it.
Whereas Erickson was working for Congress within the Fifth District in 2008 – he would later lose within the normal election to Democrat Kurt Schrader – information retailers reported Erickson gave a girlfriend a journey to a Portland abortion clinic and paid for an abortion in 2001.
Erickson mentioned on the time he gave a girl he was courting cash for a medical process, however disputed the claims that he knew it was an abortion.
He did not say straight if he opposes abortion, however mentioned he wouldn’t attempt to change Oregon’s regulation if elected to Congress.
The third-party candidate
McFarland, 76, grew up in McMinnville and Willamina and has lived within the Salem space since being discharged from the Navy in 1969. Now residing in Keizer, he mentioned he retired in 2008 after working for 40 years as an electrician.
McFarland is serving 36 months of probation after pleading responsible to 3 felonies in August for 2 incidents in 2021. In a single, he fired a shotgun in entrance of the Salem Police Division whereas Black Lives Matter protesters have been there. Within the different, he drove away from a police officer whereas intoxicated.
“You ought to be completely 100% regulation abiding,” he mentioned.
He mentioned he supposed to file for the Republican major, however missed the submitting date whereas recovering from his twelfth coronary heart assault.
Marketing campaign finance
Neither Salinas nor Erickson had a big fundraising benefit as of the June 30 reporting date, in keeping with Federal Election Fee knowledge.
Salinas’ marketing campaign raised $1.3 million; Erickson raised $1.4 million, together with $857,000 of his personal cash. McFarland hadn’t reported any fundraising.
Invoice Poehler covers Marion County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him atbpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com
from Salem – Salem Local News https://bit.ly/3fXVsLh
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