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OPB asked congressional candidates the same questions on key issues in Oregon. Read Rep. Andrea Salinas' responses here. No other 6th District candidates responded.

On paper, the contest for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District is a rematch of 2022: Democratic U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas will once again face off against Republican businessman Mike Erickson, in a race settled by less than 2.5 percentage points when the pair last met.

But on the ground and in voters’ living rooms, the battle for what might be the state’s second-most competitive district looks a lot different from two years ago.

Salinas, now an incumbent, is tapping a sizable campaign war chest and enthusiasm about Vice President Kamala Harris to convince voters in the Democratic-leaning district she has their best interests at heart.

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But Erickson has changed up his playbook this go-around. While the Republican spent the summer meeting voters face-to-face, he’s held off on the more splashy — and expensive — outreach that observers say he’ll need to compete.

As of Oct. 11, Erickson remained the only major-party nominee in a competitive Portland-area congressional race who had not begun running TV ads. And while the candidate lent his campaign nearly $3 million of his personal fortune in 2022, he’s shown little appetite for that spending so far in 2024.

As of June 30, the most recent date records are available, Erickson had given his campaign just $2,400 — compared to nearly $850,000 at the same point two years ago. Meanwhile, Salinas has raised $3.2 million.

That might seem like the makings of a rout in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than five percentage points. But Erickson says he’s not sweating it.

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“I can tell you right now, I’m working harder and doing more grassroots activity than I did two years ago, and it’s going to pay off,” Erickson told OPB in early September, after offering a rundown of parades ridden in (six), business cards distributed (he had to reorder after the first 15,000), and hands shaken at the state fair (between 15,000 and 20,000 by Erickson’s estimate). “I’m not going to buy the election. I’m going to earn it.”

Erickson’s campaign released polling in August showing that he was trailing Salinas by just two percentage points, within the margin of error. Erickson says he has seen polling from Democratic groups that actually favored him, though that data has not been made public.

But national prognosticators believe the race is Democrats’ to lose: The nonpartisan Cook Political Report labels the 6th Congressional District “lean Democrat” while the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia says it is “likely Democratic.” But it’s clear the party is not taking the district for granted.

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“This myth is that this is just a heavily Democratic district, and it’s not,” said Salinas. “So there’s no surprise that this is going to be another close race.”

Lay of the land

The 6th Congressional District is the state’s newest. It was drawn up by legislative Democrats — including Salinas — during 2021’s redistricting process, and approved over objections from Republicans who argued the congressional map was irredeemably gerrymandered.

From its main population center in Salem, the district spans west to the Coast Range, and north. It contains the farmland of Yamhill and Polk counties, and ropes in Portland suburbs like Tigard, Tualatin and a portion of Beaverton.

Those suburbs were the centerpiece of Salinas’ victory in 2022 — particularly in Washington County, where she amassed a lead of more than 20,000 votes.

Erickson prevailed in Marion, Yamhill and Polk counties, but it wasn’t enough to make up the difference. He lost by 7,210 votes, a margin that would likely have been smaller had a candidate for the conservative Constitution Party not drawn more than 3,700 voters.

This time around, Salinas and Erickson are the only candidates in play.

Erickson believes the work he’s put in meeting voters at events will be enough to win over people who didn’t pick him last time. But some of his backers say the tenor of the presidential race is key to his chances.

“My personal perspective is if [former President Donald] Trump does well, Mike Erickson is the type of race that will be won,” said Dan Mason, the national committeeman for the Oregon Republican Party. “It’s a unique district. It’s never been tested in a presidential election.”

Meanwhile, energy among Democrats in some more rural parts of the district surged earlier this year, when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and paved the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

“We’ve never had this many people want to get involved and volunteer as we’ve had this past couple months,” said Victoria Ernst, chair of the Yamhill County Democrats, which has organized door-knocking and phone banking efforts for Salinas and other candidates.

While their respective parties have highlighted Salinas and Erickson as key candidates as they battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives this year, the race has failed to garner the national attention of the ultra-tight 5th Congressional District race between Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer and state Rep. Janelle Bynum.

Salinas says she’s accomplished

Salinas argues she has earned the right to return to Washington, and points to a key achievement.

As a freshman lawmaker in a historically unproductive Congress, she authored one of just 27 bills to make it to Biden’s desk last year. It was a bill to correct sloppy legislative language that for decades had the unintended consequence of barring the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde from asserting land claims.

While both parties recognized the need to remedy an earlier mistake, Salinas said the legislation still required intensive negotiations to bring across the finish line. “I’m a freshman in the minority and I got a bill passed,” she said, arguing the bill showed “tenacity, work ethic and commitment to the people of this district.”

Salinas got her start in politics as a congressional staffer, working for Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and California Rep. Pete Stark before joining the staff of then-Oregon Rep. Darlene Hooley. She became a lobbyist for Oregon’s powerful public employee unions before being appointed to a vacant state House seat in 2017.

Salinas, like Erickson, says she’s primarily focused on inflation and high prices of consumer goods.

On the campaign trail, she’s attacked “junk” fees charged by food delivery companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats, saying she’ll push a bill to rein them in. And through her work on the House Agriculture Committee, Salinas says she’s committed to passing a new five-year farm bill that will help stabilize grocery prices by subsidizing farmers.

Like Democrats around the country, Salinas is also talking about reproductive choice. While she says the right to an abortion is safe in Oregon, she knocks Erickson for what she believes is a hypocritical anti-abortion stance.

In 2008, when Erickson was running for the 5th Congressional District, a woman came forward to report that he had paid for her abortion when they dated. Erickson has acknowledged giving the woman money and dropping her off for an appointment, but says he did not know she was going to get an abortion.

“My opponent has a really shady history on this,” Salinas said. “You can’t talk out both sides of your mouth and say this should be up to the states and at the same time come out in his first and second runs for Congress and be against abortion.”

Erickson says he accepts that Oregonians support the right to an abortion.

“I’m not running to change that,” he said. “I’m running for Congress to help solve problems.”

As of the most recent finance disclosures, Salinas had a dominant fundraising advantage over Erickson, outraising him $3.2 million to $293,000.

Erickson pitches business know-how

Three past unsuccessful runs for Congress could be an asset for Erickson this year, supporters say. Voters might not have elected him, but they’ve seen his name on the ballot repeatedly.

The founder of AFMS, a company that helps other businesses manage their shipping costs, Erickson is wealthy. He says he’s running again because he doesn’t see enough businesspeople like him in Washington, D.C.

“Congress needs new people and new blood and new ideas and some good businesspeople to help bring solutions that aren’t being applied properly,” he said.

Erickson has made the high prices brought on by years of elevated inflation a centerpiece of his campaign.

If elected he vows to pressure the Federal Reserve to further lower interest rates, even though the central bank does not answer to politicians. Like Trump, he also wants to further increase domestic energy production to reduce gas prices.

“I want to go through and do everything I can to get our country energy independent,” Erickson said. “Fuel is one of the largest drivers of transportation costs.”

Erickson argues Democrats’ border policies have failed, and that Salinas shares the blame. “She’s done nothing on that front,” he said.

And he accuses Salinas of making things worse in Oregon by supporting Measure 110, the now-scrapped law decriminalizing possession of drugs.

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While Salinas says she did not vote for the 2020 ballot measure, an archived web page for the “yes” campaign suggests she voiced her support as a state lawmaker.

According to a staffer, Salinas “has no recollection of signing this petition and personally voted no on Measure 110 when it was on the ballot.” The congresswoman has recently made the spread of fentanyl and Oregon’s addiction crisis a key piece of her campaign.

Erickson will talk at length about the issues motivating him this year in media interviews, but he’s not doing much to broadcast his views. His campaign isn’t particularly active on social media, his web page doesn’t include detailed policy positions, and he hasn’t aired ads on TV networks with ballots set to go out beginning Oct. 16.

In a Sept. 25 text message, Erickson said mail pieces and TV ads were “coming soon.” As of Oct. 11, public filings suggest he had not purchased ad space with Portland-area television networks or cable providers.

Republican political observers privately say Erickson will need to once again spend some of his personal wealth to make his case to voters. That’s the strategy he adopted in three prior unsuccessful congressional runs, loaning his campaign more than $1.5 million in 2006, $2.1 million in 2008 and $2.7 million in 2022.

“He’s a multimillionaire, so he can drop seven figures whenever he wants,” Salinas said.

While campaign finance records from July through September aren’t yet available, it’s not clear Erickson has done so.

At the same time, Erickson has not been static. Campaign signs bearing his face and name are common sights in farm fields along Interstate 5 between Portland and Salem.

“He could very well win that seat and people are like, ‘Wait a sec, you hardly ran a campaign,’” said Mason, the Republican national committeeman. “Andrea Salinas is not a massive name with a massive record.”

A lingering lawsuit

Disagreements on issues are not the only thing hovering over this race. Salinas and Erickson are also squaring off in court, in a two-year-old defamation suit based on an attack ad Salinas ran in 2022.

In the ad, Salinas’ campaign said Erickson was “charged with felony drug possession” during a 2016 drunken driving arrest in Hood River. Officers found an oxycodone pill in Erickson’s wallet, which he said was his wife’s. But while police indicated in a citation that a drug possession charge was possible in the case, prosecutors never filed such a charge.

Erickson’s campaign sued for $800,000 after Salinas declined to remove the ad from rotation. After a Clackamas County judge allowed the case to move forward, Salinas appealed. The two sides argued the matter before the Oregon Court of Appeals in February, and it’s unclear when the court might rule.

“We were hoping we would’ve had this all resolved right now, and some of her two or three million dollars could have maybe come to my campaign,” Erickson said.

Salinas declined to talk at length about the suit, saying: “I am confident in the ad that we ran, which cited police records describing my opponent’s arrest.”

Erickson, too, faces accusations. In June, a liberal election watchdog group called for an investigation into Erickson over candidate disclosure forms it said were far too vague.

The group, End Citizens United, said Erickson had inappropriately left out required details about the properties he owns, his business interests and what investments he holds as part of his retirement accounts when filing disclosure forms.

Erickson has called the complaint a political smear.

“There’s no way you can list 400 stocks worth $100 or $200,” he said. “You can be here for a week doing that … They just know we’re in a close race now so they are looking for things.”

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Democrats have a registration advantage of more than 5 percentage points in the 6th Congressional District. An earlier version misstated that number. OPB regrets the error.