Dodging a Bullet: Oregon 3-2

As we all know, Republicans very, very narrowly fell short of taking the governorship of Oregon. Oregonians instead opted to send former Gov. John Kitzhaber back to the governor’s mansion over Republican Chris Dudley, best known for playing basketball.

Republicans also came extremely close to capturing slim majorities in both the State House and the State Senate. The State House is now evenly split, while it appears Democrats will hang onto a majority of one or two in the Senate.

If Republicans had garnered just another point in the statewide popular vote, it seems likely they would have flipped both houses of the Oregon state legislature and installed Chris Dudley as governor, giving them a trifecta in the Beaver State. As a left-leaning independent and an Oregonian expat, let me just take a moment to editorialize by way of gagging.

With redistricting coming up, Republicans could have taken control and gerrymandered Oregon, provided they could agree on a map (otherwise, Secy. Kate Brown, Oregon’s Democratic secretary of state, would have been constitutionally empowered to draw one up – which, as it is, puts considerable pressure on Republicans to compromise with Democrats). Here’s one they might have liked.

I’ve done what any self-respecting, all-powerful Republican trifecta would do, and I’ve just handed Democrats the Willamette River Valley while giving Republicans two seats in the rest of the state.

There should be little controversy about the Portland metropolitan area. The new OR-01 I’ve drawn would have been, if Republicans had won and drew this map, one of the most Democratic districts in the entire country; Rep. Blumenauer’s Republican opponent, Delia Lopez, picked up three percent of the vote in the portion of Multnomah County in Blumenauer’s district, currently OR-03. Note: I spent so much time playing around with the district lines that some of the district numbers are mixed up.

OR-01 here includes some of the most liberal parts of Clackamas County, including Milwaukee. Rep. Blumenauer would thrive here, obviously.

As for OR-05, it includes most of Portland’s western suburbs, as well as some of the most swingy parts of Clackamas County. It’d probably be a Democratic district, but an Oregonian answer to Reps. Reichert or Tiberi might be able to flip it in a good year.

I originally had OR-05 reaching up into Columbia County to encompass St. Helens and Scappoose, but I decided against it. They were instead awarded to OR-04, which thus holds the entire Oregon Coast. OR-04 also reaches inland to western Washington, Yamhill, and Polk counties. It’s almost entirely rural, and despite Astoria and a few other lean Democratic cities in northwestern Oregon, it would be safely Republican.

The reason OR-04 would be safely Republican is simple: Eugene has been gerrymandered into a district with the lean Democratic cities of the Willamette River Valley, including the capital of Salem and its suburbs. Conservative Albany is left to OR-04. Because of the way OR-03 is drawn, it would be a pretty safe Democratic district, especially considering the surging Latino population in and around Salem.

OR-02, currently Rep. Walden’s district, remains safely Republican, soaking up the swingy population centers of Bend, Medford, Ashland, and Hood River with the entirety of hard-right eastern Oregon, as well as most of fairly conservative central and southern Oregon.

In plain speech, OR-02 and OR-04 would be safely Republican, while OR-01, OR-03, and OR-05 would be Democratic. Definitely a good thing Republicans didn’t manage to take over Salem this year.

BONUS: Just for kicks, here’s a picture of the way I originally gerrymandered OR-03:

I decided Bend would be fine in OR-02 and it would be best to keep the district more compact and inclusive of the Salem suburbs, not just the I-5 corridor down the Willamette River Valley. The way this district is drawn would force OR-03 to spill into Clackamas County. While it’s funny (and hideous), I decided it wasn’t practical.