Janelle Bynum declares victory in hard-fought race against Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer

By Julia Shumway and Lynne Terry, Oregon Capital Chronicle

CLACKAMAS, Ore. (KTVZ) — Surrounded by a hastily assembled group of campaign volunteers, Democrat Janelle Bynum declared victory in Oregon’s closest congressional race at a news conference Friday.

The Associated Press has not yet called the district, but Bynum has led since Tuesday night and The Oregonian/OregonLive projected Friday morning that Bynum would win based on its analysis of the remaining votes to be counted in the 5th Congressional District. If her lead holds, the Democratic state representative would be the first Black congresswoman from a state that banned Black people from living within its boundaries when it joined the union.

That history was on Bynum’s mind as she gave brief remarks at her campaign headquarters Friday afternoon. 

“It’s not lost on me that I am one generation removed from segregation. It’s not lost on me that we’re making history, and I am proud to be the first, but not the last, Black member of Congress in Oregon,” she said Friday afternoon. “I’m proud to be a groundbreaker because of what that means, not just for my children, but for all young people across our state to see that change is possible, and that when something big has never been done before, that it might just be because you haven’t accomplished it yet.”

By midday Friday, Bynum had a lead of nearly 8,600 votes and 2.5 points over Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who herself made history in 2022 as one of Oregon’s first Latina members of Congress. The other, Democratic U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, has also declared victory in her own reelection race in the Willamette Valley-based 6th Congressional District, though the AP has yet to call that race either. Salinas’ second-time opponent, Republican Mike Erickson, said Wednesday he’s waiting on more votes to be counted before reacting.

Chavez-DeRemer has not publicly commented on the race since Tuesday night, when she encouraged her supporters to be patient as the vote counting continues. The race took several days to call in 2022. A spokesman for her campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Bynum also hadn’t heard from Chavez-DeRemer, but she said that wasn’t a surprise after their two prior matchups. Bynum defeated Chavez-DeRemer in state House races in 2016 and 2018.

“She didn’t (concede) in 2016, she didn’t in 2018 and I haven’t heard from her in 2024,” Bynum said. 

A Bynum win would flip the 5th District back to Democratic control after 14-year former Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader lost in the 2022 primary to Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who subsequently lost the general election by 2.1 points to Chavez-DeRemer. 

In 2020, Democratic President Joe Biden won the district by 9 points. It has more Democratic voters than Republicans – nearly 32% to 27% – and is one of Oregon’s most geographically diverse, stretching across Linn County, most of Clackamas and Deschutes counties and parts of Multnomah and Marion counties.

The AP has still not called control of the U.S. House, but analysts expect a Republican win. They’ve also won the U.S. Senate and Republican President-elect Donald Trump won the White House with 297 electoral votes compared with 226 for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. A total of 270 votes are needed to secure the White House.

Oregon, as expected, endorsed Harris by a wide margin, giving her a 13-point lead, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. Oregonians also gave Democratic incumbent Val Hoyle another term in the 4th Congressional District. If victories by Bynum and Salinas are confirmed, Oregon will only have one Republican in Congress — Cliff Bentz, who was reelected to a third term with a 31-point lead over Democrat Dan Ruby in the heavily Republican 2nd Congressional District.

The election results are bittersweet for Oregon’s Democrats, including the campaign volunteers who flanked Bynum at her victory press conference. Portland resident Jeff Kidder, a volunteer with the progressive group Indivisible who spent his weekends knocking on doors for Bynum, said he and fellow volunteers are grieving the presidential results and trying to plan how they’ll protect anyone negatively affected by Trump administration policies, but first they’re celebrating that Bynum will go to D.C. to represent them.  

“We had originally had a celebration planned for Saturday that we were trying to figure out if we needed to turn into a wake, but now we know we have something to celebrate,” Kidder said. 

Bynum was an engineer before moving to Oregon, her husband’s home state, about 20 years ago. She couldn’t find an engineering job in the state in the wake of the dot-com bubble burst, and she eventually joined her husband in taking over his mother’s McDonald’s franchise. As she talked to more of her neighbors before she first ran for the state House in 2016, she said she heard from people with similar stories of not making it in Oregon.

“That’s what propelled me to first run for office, to make sure that everyone’s voices were heard at the table,” she said. “So at the end of the day, I’m still an engineer. I still take apart complex issues and put together solutions. I still try to figure out how to do what others thought was impossible, and that’s why I entered public service, to solve hard problems.”

Among Oregon’s U.S. races, the 5th District has been the most closely watched, with the candidates raising more than $12 million through mid-October and millions more spent by interest groups to get them elected. National Democrats and Republicans both considered the race among a few nationwide that would determine control of the House. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Bynum to its competitive “Red to Blue” program, throwing its support behind her in the primary.

During the campaign, Bynum centered her campaign around abortion rights. While Oregon and Vermont do more to protect abortion access than all other states, Democrats including Bynum have warned that Republicans might try to pass a national abortion ban through Congress. Bynum spoke frequently about her 22-year-old daughter, who is deciding where to attend graduate school based in part on where her reproductive rights will be protected, and pledged to support legislation restoring a national right to abortion. She also sought to tie Chavez-DeRemer to Trump, referring to the Republican congresswoman as “standing by her man.” 

Chavez-DeRemer, on the other hand, touted her bipartisan record and unusually long list of labor endorsements. While Oregon’s large public sector unions, including Service Employees International Union Local 503, the Oregon Education Association and the ​​American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations back Bynum, the state’s largest private sector union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, gave both Bynum and Chavez-DeRemer its “greenlight” stamp, indicating that both candidates’ values align with the union’s. Chavez-DeRemer was endorsed by about 20 unions, mostly smaller local unions representing public safety and tradespeople.

Updated at 3:40 p.m. Friday with comments from Bynum and supporters.