Rep. Kurt Schrader (D., Ore.) speaks at a news conference in Washington, July 24, 2019.
Photo:
Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
Oregon’s seven-term Democratic Rep.
Kurt Schrader,
a member of the dwindling Blue Dog Coalition, has apparently been ousted by a left-wing challenger, Jamie McLeod-Skinner. The race hasn’t been called owing to a ballot issue in Clackamas County, but Ms. McLeod-Skinner holds a 20-point lead. Until 2019 I lived in Bend, the city that propelled her to victory, and I saw how the California exodus has made a once-moderate community increasingly intolerant of Democrats who stray, even slightly, from leftist orthodoxy.
Republicans outnumbered Democrats in Deschutes County when I moved there in 2014. But since then, Democrats have registered about two voters for every new Republican and now outnumber GOP residents. Oregon’s population growth, largely from California and Seattle, gave it a sixth congressional district in 2021. In reworking the Congressional map, Democratic legislators pulled most of Deschutes County from the reliably Republican 2nd District and tossed it into Mr. Schrader’s newly fashioned 5th District.
Ms. McLeod-Skinner skillfully tarred Mr. Schrader as “the
Joe Manchin
of Oregon.” She dubiously claimed on her campaign homepage that Mr. Schrader wasn’t pro-choice because he once said something positive about the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion—though he voted against it. Planned Parenthood gave Mr….