Oregon: Democrats Bring a 'Plus One'
The first state in the nation to approve new district maps.
Topline Takeaways
Oregon is one of six states to gain a US House seat following the 2020 reapportionment process, bringing the state’s total number of seats up to six.
The state was the first in the nation to approve new congressional districts.
Republican challenges to the map allege partisan gerrymandering but the Oregon Supreme Court recently tossed out the related lawsuits.
New District Breakdown
The 2020 census saw Oregon’s population grow by over 10% compared to 2010, with just over 4.2 million residents, resulting in the newly earned US House seat. The state also continues to diversify with only 71.7% of residents identifying as non-Hispanic White, the lowest proportion on record.
With the introduction of the new map, Oregon’s first and third districts only saw slight changes. The majority of voters in those districts still reside in Portland’s downtown areas and northern suburbs. The state’s second district, which previously held the bulk of the Oregon’s more conservative rural areas, has relinquished the Bend metro area in exchange for rural counties in Southern Oregon (all of Josephine and parts of Douglas). Oregon’s fourth district has evolved to be more centered on the state’s coast as Linn County and the eastern suburbs of Corvallis (home to Oregon State University) were traded over to the new fifth district.
The most substantial changes in Oregon’s congressional map lie in the center of the Willamette Valley, split between an overhauled fifth congressional district and the state’s newly earned sixth district. OR-5, currently held by Kurt Schrader, gives up most of the Salem metro area as well as some southern exurbs of Portland in order to form the new OR-6. This revamped fifth district is instead the new home for Bend voters who will vote alongside exurban residents of Linn, Marion and Clackamas counties. The district’s current representative, Kurt Schrader (D), has indicated that he will run for re-election in the redrawn fifth district. While Schrader has faced criticism from other Democrats for being too moderate, the redrawn fifth district may be a good fit for Schrader as it holds more White residents with more centrist voting patterns. (The new fifth district shifts roughly a point towards Republicans when compared to the old district’s voting patterns in the 2020 election.)
The state’s new sixth district is expected to produce a “plus one” for Democrats. Areas encapsulated in the new district ultimately voted for Joe Biden by a margin of 13 points in the 2020 election. Altogether, these areas also have higher percentages of nonwhite residents and residents with at least a Bachelor’s degree than the state as a whole. Since the new district includes most of Salem, the state capital, as well as the southwestern suburbs of the Portland metro aera like Tigard and Tualatin, the district is expected to elect a Democratic candidate like Schrader, who previously represented many communities included in the new district.
Who’s in Control?
Oregon’s redistricting process is completely controlled by the state legislature and requires gubernatorial approval before being adopted. Democrats are firmly in the drivers seat here as they hold a trifecta: majorities in both houses alongside a Democratic governor. While Oregon Republicans had little say in the map-making process, they still incited drama by boycotting two days of House sessions in protest of the proposed maps.
Cracking, Packing, Kidnapping or Hijacking?
Following the boycotts, Oregon’s new congressional district map faced two lawsuits from Republicans who alleged partisan gerrymandering. (These cases were just recently tossed out by the Oregon Supreme Court.) They argued that Democrats created an unfair map due to the way it anchors four of the state’s six districts in the Portland metropolitan area; effectively cracking the urban Democratic coalition while packing most of the state’s Republican voters into the 2nd district. Ultimately, the court said that Republicans failed to provide evidence that the new maps violated state laws. Not only did the previous map engage in these exact same tactics, the new districts are all relatively centralized and compact, signalling that no extreme tactics were employed to create a map that tilts in favor of Democrats.