Left: Rep. Tracy Cramer, R-District 22, on the House floor in Salem, Ore., in this Feb. 5, 2024, file photo. Right: Lesly Munoz in an undated photo provided by the campaign.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OPB / Courtesy of Future PAC
Oregon Democrats knew they had a good Election Day. Results updated Thursday evening suggest they might have had a great one.
Late ballots in one of this year’s hardest-fought state House races have favored Democrats — to the point that, as of Thursday evening, Democrat Lesly Munoz held a wispy one-vote lead over incumbent Republican Rep. Tracy Cramer in House District 22.
That lead is well within the state’s margin to trigger an automatic recount. And the result is likely to change after hundreds of outstanding ballots are counted, and if hundreds more voters whose signatures couldn’t be verified take the step of “curing” their ballots with election officials.
But if the outcome holds, the race would shift the dynamic of next year’s legislative session. It would ensure Democrats have a three-fifths supermajority in both the House and Senate, meaning the party can pass practically any bill – including new tax measures – without a single Republican vote.
Both Democrats and Republicans have been eying HD 22 for days, as early results that favored Cramer by several percentage points narrowed when ballots received on or after Election Day were counted. Under Oregon law, mailed ballots are accepted as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day and reach officials within a week of the election.
By Wednesday, Cramer’s lead had shrunk to just 138. And with nearly 1,900 ballots left to tally, both parties were grappling with the possibility Munoz, a teachers’ union organizer, might pull ahead.
When Marion County updated its results shortly before 7 p.m. on Thursday, she had — by the narrowest of margins.
Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess said in an email Thursday that 809 ballots remained to be counted in the district. There were also 733 “unaccepted” ballots in the district. Many of those had signatures election officials could not reconcile with a voter’s signature on file. They can still be cured – meaning voters can prove to officials they actually signed the ballot – until Nov. 26.
Under Oregon law, counties have until Dec. 2 to certify election results.
Anchored in Woodburn, House District 22 is the only majority-minority district in the state. Long held by Democrats, it flipped in 2022, when Cramer prevailed in the race for an open seat.
Democrats hold a voter registration advantage of nearly 7% in the district, and President Joe Biden won there by 11 points four years ago. But a high proportion of nonaffiliated voters make HD 22 harder to predict than many others.
Democrats considered the district their best chance to regain a seat this year. Republicans were just as adamant about defending it, and Cramer outspent Munoz in the race roughly two-to-one.
Democrats have already reclaimed a supermajority in the state Senate next year, after flipping a Bend-area seat that had elected Republicans for decades.
If Munoz’s lead holds, the party would have wide latitude to pass its agenda next year, when lawmakers are expected to take up major funding needs for state roads, wildfire prevention, schools and more.