Urban-rural divide underscores tensions as congressional candidates vie for Clackamas County

Editor’s note: Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Stay informed with OPB on the presidential race, key congressional battles and other local contests and ballot measures in Oregon and Southwest Washington at opb.org/elections.

It was the week of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and more than 2,000 miles away, there was a surge in phone calls and visitors at the Clackamas County Democrats’ office. Shelley McNabb, a bespectacled county resident in a Fleetwood Mac shirt, burst through the door and screamed: “Oh my God!”

With Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, excitement among Democrats was sweeping the country.

“We’re getting so much enthusiasm that we’re hoping it all trickles down so that we get one big blue wave,” said Marie Karns, a local party leader.

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Located in Oregon City, the Democrats’ office sits at the edge of suburban Portland and the rural towns that dot Clackamas County. In the race for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District — one of the nation’s most closely watched elections — winning this closely divided county could mean winning the seat, and maybe even flipping the U.S. House of Representatives.

More than 40% of the district’s registered voters live in Clackamas County, according to voter registration data from the Oregon secretary of state. In the 2022 congressional race, no county in the district was decided by a slimmer margin — just over one percentage point. Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner won the county but lost the tightly contested race overall to Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

“It has definitely been very politically purple,” said state Sen. Mark Meek, a Democrat from the nearby town of Gladstone. He noted that prior state legislative elections have been decided by margins of one or two percentage points, adding: “It has always been very, very competitive.”

Incumbent Chavez-DeRemer faces Democratic state Rep. Janelle Bynum in this year’s general election, in what amounts to a rematch. The candidates have faced off twice before in races for the Oregon House of Representatives, with Bynum winning each time. Both are longtime Clackamas County residents.

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This year’s election has reached the national spotlight, drawing in millions of dollars in campaign contributions, advertisements and support from powerful political figures, including a brief visit from House Speaker Mike Johnson, the nation’s top Republican congressman. A recent poll of 419 likely voters in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District showed that this year’s race is neck-and-neck, according to Arizona-based polling firm Noble Predictive Insights.

Oregon City is known for its large public elevator and its historic downtown along the Willamette River just below a waterfall, a short drive from the city and the countryside. Clackamas County’s communities are growing — increasing in a decade from nearly 376,000 residents to more than 421,000 — and some say positive change is underway. Younger, diverse Oregonians are moving from the city to the suburbs, reshaping business and life in some of the county’s towns, according to three local mayors.

“We were pretty Republican when I was a kid,” said Lake Oswego Mayor Joe Buck. “Now that’s totally changed.”

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Others are concerned about the changes that might come with what some call “the Portland Creep,” like increased taxes, tolling, surging housing prices and homelessness. County Chair Tootie Smith is using the term as a prominent part of her reelection campaign. (Smith and all other members of the county commission declined to comment for this story, a county spokesman said.)

“I think in Clackamas County, they really do prize their independence,” said Republican Christine Drazan of Canby, the former Oregon House minority leader who ran for governor in 2022, and is running unopposed to return to the Legislature this year. “They really, really do want to be distinct from Portland.”

But here, the different views around how to address Oregon’s biggest problems converge — and sometimes clash. In June 2021, left- and right-wing protesters battled at an Oregon City park. Earlier this month, an independent journalist with admitted anti-fascist sympathies was sentenced to two weeks in jail after being found guilty of felony riot. Other participants, including Proud Boys, face charges.

Last year, a person threw a brick through the plate glass windows at the Clackamas County Democrats’ office, and within the next two weeks a person came in the middle of the night and shot out the rest of the windows with what appeared to be a BB gun, said Karns.

Political tensions aren’t new at the urban-rural divide in Oregon’s third most populous county, but the divide has grown in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice uprisings in Portland, according to interviews with local residents and regional lawmakers.

“The biggest change was the pandemic,” said Meek, who added that some of his constituents who lost confidence in their elected leaders became independent or non-affiliated voters. He said, “That’s how I think this district got a little swingy-er and a little tighter.”

There are 75,889 Democrats, 56,662 Republicans and 75,212 non-affiliated voters in Clackamas County’s part of Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, according to the latest state data. Since 2022, both parties saw slight declines — more than 1,500 voters each — while the number of non-affiliated voters increased by more than 3,000.

In all, more than 34% of the district’s voters are non-affiliated, while more than 31% are Democrats and nearly 27% are Republicans, according to state data.

Drazan says many Clackamas County residents support law enforcement, oppose how the state has handled its addiction crisis, and want local control over how things are governed.

“There is no one kind of Clackamas County voter,” said Drazan, who lost her gubernatorial campaign but bested Democrat Tina Kotek and independent candidate Betsy Johnson in the county by more than four percentage points. “But I would say that the majority of folks that live in Clackamas County live here because they’ve chosen to live here, rather than choosing to live in Washington County or Multnomah County, which are led quite differently.”

Lawmakers say Clackamas County leans more Republican than Democrat. They say this is a county where it’s especially hard to earn votes, often from families in tight-knit communities who have lived there for generations.

“I think that voters in this county have a really good sense of who is fake and who is authentic,” said Drazan, who added: “There’s always gonna be the fringes no matter where you go. But for the most part, I think in Clackamas County, they just want people to do the thing that makes sense, the thing that solves the problem.”

And Drazan says that incumbent Chavez-DeRemer’s strong leadership has cemented the 5th Congressional District as a Republican seat.

“I think Lori’s going to win, and I think she’s going to win because she’s the right person to serve this district,” Drazan said.

Lisa Halcom has seen the change underway in the county, and the tension that’s come with it. She’s lived in the small town of Gladstone for 15 years and owns the Happyrock coffee shop. Over time, her shop grew into a gathering space for the local queer community.

“There’s a lot of queer people in this county that are looking for the community, that are looking for the space to be themselves and to meet other people,” Halcom said.

But she says her shop has been attacked repeatedly by right-wing protesters. People have thrown rocks through the windows, stolen flags and signs for the queer and Black community, and yelled homophobic slurs at drag queens during a family bingo night.

“Oftentimes, people will say, ‘We don’t want that stuff here, take it back to Portland,’ as though it exists only in Portland, which is not accurate,” Halcom said. “Queer people exist within every demographic within every community.”

Halcom anticipates Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will once again bring out a large Republican presence in Clackamas County, but she thinks Kamala Harris’ campaign makes things different this time around.

“There’s more excitement surrounding her, so I definitely feel that energy, where people are not going to be quiet about who they’re voting for,” said Halcom, whose shop is closed as she acquires the permits to start construction on a new coffee shop nearby.

Experts say turnout could be key to deciding who wins the incredibly close race for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District.