Unpacking Oregon’s 2020 Legislative Elections
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Oregon’s 2020 election can’t be easily summarized in a single sentence. No “Blue Wave” swept Republicans out of previously safe legislative seats, and no “Red Wave” produced significant GOP gains. While radical reforms to drug policy passed statewide, there was no broader left wing shift downballot.
On paper, the election was static. No net Senate seat change, R+1 in the 60 seat state House. First GOP net pickup in the State House in a decade.
Anti-climactic after two straight Republican legislative walkouts that garnered national attention, apocalyptic wildfires that burned over a million acres over Labor Day Weekend, a once in a century pandemic and resulting recession, and over 100 days of civil unrest and rioting over police brutality and racial injustice in the state’s largest city.
So what happened?
All Politics is National
Just as 2018 saw previously safe Republican legislators representing nominally “Blue” wealthy suburban districts in West Linn and Wilsonville be swept aside, 2020 saw Democrats lose rural White, working class seats on the coast they had held for decades, continuing the rural and urban political re-alignment that has dominated the Trump-era.
The races weren’t particularly close, either. Suburban HD-26 and HD-37 south of Portland, both surprise pickups by Democrats in 2018, were 11 and 14 point wins in 2020. Urban HD-54 in Bend, an anomalous Republican win in 2018 after Democrats nominated withdrew their support for a scandal plagued candidate became a 20 point blowout of incumbent moderate Cheri Helt. Inversely, the Republican flips of coastal White working class HD-9 and HD-32 were 9 and 13 point wins, even as Democrats won them only two years prior.
Even where rural Democrats survived, the numbers weren’t promising. A rematch in coastal-adjacent HD-31 between saw the incumbent Democrat’s margin of victory fall from 8% in 2018 to under 1%.
In the senate, Dem held rural coastal district SD-5 flipped GOP, and previously safe GOP suburban district SD-10 flipped, with SD-27 narrowly avoiding doing so as well.
Although Senate seats remained unchanged and House seats changed by 1, significant movement in margins occurred under the surface, mirroring national trends. With the exceptions of Brad Witt in HD-31, Tim Knopp in SD-27, and Ron Noble in HD-24, no Republican candidates won districts Joe Biden won and no Democratic candidates won districts Trump won. Oregon’s legislative results have become completely nationalized.
Notably, the Hispanic shift towards the GOP that was pronounced in Texas and Florida did not materialize in Oregon. Oregon’s only Hispanic-majority legislative district, HD-22, saw no change from 2016, remaining an 11 point Democratic win.
Individual Candidate Quality Still Mattered
With Oregon’s state Senate districts being made up of exactly two House districts, one of the best metrics for candidate quality is comparing senate candidate performance to the combined state house candidate performances in their district. Traditionally, Oregon Republicans overperform at the state senate relative to the state legislative level. In 2018, Republican Chuck Thomsen narrowly held on in SD-26 even as Democrats carried both House districts that constituted it.
In 2020, that trend continued with one major exception. Dirk Anderson’s flip of SD-5 on the coast overperformed House Republicans, as did Tim Knopp’s narrow hold over SD-27. However, Denyc Boles in SD-10 underperformed Republicans at the House level, resulting in the seat flipping.
While scandal-ridden Diego Hernandez won his safely Blue legislative district in East Portland, he only did so with 48% of the vote, with 18% supporting a late entrance longshot left wing third party challenger. Brian Boquist, who told state police to “come armed and send bachelors” in the wake of law enforcement searching for him during a walkout, saw a 5 point decline in his win margin in his safely red rural seat relative to his 2016 performance.
In contrast, moderate, respected GOP candidate Justin Hwang came within 3 points of winning in SD-25, an East Portland seat Democrats won by 15 points in 2016, and Joe Biden won handily. Hwang’s opponent, incumbent representative Chris Gorsek, consistently scores low marks in Willamette Week’s annual Good, Bad & Awful survey, which rates Portland-area legislators effectiveness based on a survey of lobbyists. In 2017, a respondent described him as a “Nice enough guy, but as irrelevant as the day he walked into the building.”
While moderation can be a political asset, it can also be a liability. Republican Cheri Helt in HD-54 was an ardent critic of Donald Trump and a major proponent of mandatory vaccines, angering her own party, while failing to garner Democratic support after launching a scorched earth campaign accusing her Democratic challenger of being soft on human traffickers. Not only was she blown out by 20 points, but the number of write-in votes in the district was over 1% (7 times the average for a legislative race), and Helt was the only representative to see a drop in total votes cast for her from 2018–20, indicating her own base revolted against her.
Oregon Needs Ranked Choice Voting
There were only two flips in Oregon’s state senate, both for opposite parties, resulting in no net seat changes. SD-10 in suburban south Salem flipped to Democrats, and SD-5, on the Oregon Coast, flipped to Republicans
Looking from 1,000 feet up, it would be easy to consider said legislative flips as part of a national trend of suburbs flipping to Democrats as White working class rural areas flip to Republicans.
But looking closer, both races included third party candidates that appeared to serve as spoilers.
A less than scrupulous party operative would see the perverse incentives created by said spoilers. In other states, third party Green, Libertarian, and Constitution party candidates have had their candidacies supported by Republican and Democratic parties to ratfuck the other side.
Oregon largely avoids this by allowing third parties to conduct their own primary elections internally through nominating conventions attended by active party members, preventing the parties from being hijacked by outside interests. Both Shauleen Higgens and Taylor Rickey were sincere candidates who were not plants by major parties.
However, the reality sits that the third party margins in SD-5 and especially SD-10 were considerably higher than the margin between the major candidates. While there certainly are Green Party voters who won’t vote for Democrats and Libertarians who wouldn’t support the GOP, most do.
In fact, much of Dirk Anderson’s overperformance and Denyc Bole’s underperformance relative to House candidates can be attributed to the third party candidates in their races.
Whether they were spoilers or not, the perception that they served as spoilers merely for having the audacity to nominate candidates hurts third parties, and a strictly first past the post voting system results in candidates being elected that don’t represent the will of the majority of voters. A ranked choice voting system would prevent said failures of first past the post voting.
The Future
Democrats will control redistricting in Oregon in 2021, thanks to their supermajorities in the legislature and control of the governor’s mansion. However, I wouldn’t expect a Democratic gerrymander. Not only do Republicans still have the ability to walk out and deny quorum, something Oregon Democrats did in 2001 to stop a Republican gerrymander, but Oregon’s new Secretary of State Shemia Fagan has indicated a desire to create an independent redistricting commission, though it is unclear if she will be able (or willing) to implement a commission before redistricting occurs.
That doesn’t mean Republicans won’t be hurt. Oregon’s urban areas are growing faster than its rural areas. Even under “fair” redistricting, additional legislative seats in Washington County and Deschutes County at the expense of rural Oregon are not out of the question, further cementing Democratic gains.
But all is not rosy for Democrats, either. Achieving walkout-proof majorities in the House and Senate will be tall orders without the support of rural coastal seats. Furthermore, their narrow wins of HD-52 and HD-50, and their scare in SD-25 indicate that east Multnomah County, while being a nominally exurban area held by Democrats, remains a battleground that will require resources to protect. Republicans still have opportunities for gains.
