{"id":879944,"date":"2022-11-11T19:38:23","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T19:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=414120"},"modified":"2022-11-11T19:38:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T19:38:23","slug":"a-controversial-decision-in-oregon-could-cost-democrats-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/11\/11\/a-controversial-decision-in-oregon-could-cost-democrats-the-house\/","title":{"rendered":"A Controversial Decision in Oregon Could Cost Democrats the House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Against all odds,<\/u> Democrats continue to have a plausible path<\/a> to retaining the House majority, putting a microscope on strategic decisions made by party leaders in the final weeks of the campaign. The race may even come down to a single seat, elevating the cost to the party of its underperformance in the home state of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee whose high-profile bigfooting of a fellow Democrat<\/a> ended with his surprise loss on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It has also put a spotlight on a race in Oregon that could prove pivotal. There, Democratic nominee Jamie McLeod-Skinner is locked in a tight battle with millionaire Lori Chavez-DeRemer for the 5th Congressional District, which stretches south and east from the Portland suburbs in Clackamas County to Deschutes County, which includes the rapidly growing and highly competitive city of Bend. McLeod-Skinner made national headlines earlier this year for defeating seven-term incumbent Kurt Schrader in a fiercely contested primary. Her win \u2014 the only success an insurgent candidate notched against a Democratic incumbent this cycle \u2014 was driven by a lopsided overperformance in Deschutes.<\/p>\n

Schrader had been a member of the so-called Unbreakable Nine<\/a> who organized against President Joe Biden\u2019s Build Back Better agenda, and said in a private call with the dark-money sponsors of their operation, No Labels, that he hoped to kill it. National progressive groups as well as most of the local Democratic Party operations rallied behind McLeod-Skinner to knock out Schrader<\/a>\u00a0in May.<\/p>\n

While the DCCC made an investment of just under $2 million dollars in the race, they came off the air in the final few weeks, and the leadership-aligned super political action committee, House Majority PAC, made the eyebrow-raising move to triage the race altogether. House Majority PAC communications director CJ Warnke declined to explain the reasoning behind the move at the time, but told The Intercept Friday that House Majority PAC \u201chad to make strategic decisions across the country to build the most optimal path to Democratic success this cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur investments,\u201d he continued, \u201cmade a major difference across the country and in Oregon, where we spent nearly $4 million for Congresswoman-elect Val Hoyle in OR-04 and State Rep. Andrea Salinas in OR-06 \u2014 who both faced an unprecedented amount of Republican spending this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Of course, the fiasco in the neighboring 6th Congressional District also has House Majority PAC\u2019s fingerprints all over it. There, progressive state representative Andrea Salinas entered the general election bruised from the most expensive primary contest in the nation after former cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried and\u00a0House Majority PAC teamed up in an over $10 million failed attempt<\/a> to anoint political newcomer and effective altruist Carrick Flynn as the nominee. The unorthodox partnership appeared to be the result of a quid pro quo, as Bankman-Fried contemporaneously donated $6 million to the committee. House Majority PAC spent $1 million on Flynn and ended up spending over $3.25 million of the remainder helping Salinas win the general election in a seat that was considered safe earlier in the cycle. The DCCC also spent $1.75 million boosting Salinas. (Bankman-Fried was worth billions of dollars at the time; as of now, he appears broke<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Republicans, on the other hand, treated the race in Oregon\u2019s 5th District as the toss-up it clearly was; they spent nearly $8 million in total \u2014\u00a0spending that ballooned all the way through Election Day.<\/p>\n

That put Oregon\u2019s 5th in the top 20 when it came to spending by House Republicans, while McLeod-Skinner was near the bottom for Democrats when it came to competitive races. Republicans also had more money to work with: Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican super PAC, had some $250 million<\/a> to parcel out across the country, while the Democrats\u2019 super PAC spent around $140 million<\/a>. \u201cThe data just wasn\u2019t there on that race,\u201d argued one Democratic operative involved in the race. \u201cPortland was also an incredibly expensive media market. I don\u2019t know where you would have pulled the money from.\u201d Of course, the cheaper Bend media market, in the southeastern part of the district, also went untapped.<\/p>\n

While a handful of progressive organizations stepped in<\/a> to alleviate some of the massive financial disparity \u2014 including a $1 million investment from Working Families Party that stretched across the primary and general \u2014 their limited resources meant McLeod-Skinner, who has long declined support from corporate-funded PACs, was left with an outside spending deficit of over $5 million. The progressive groups who worked to close that gap have been sharp in their criticism. \u201cWhile they pumped last-minute money into the DCCC chair’s losing race in New York,\u201d Indivisible national political director Dani Negrete told The Intercept, \u201cJamie has been holding on entirely based on her strength as a candidate and her grassroots support<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The party’s underinvestment in McLeod-Skinner is reminiscent of Democrats\u2019 decision to abandon progressive nominee Kara Eastman during her 2018 run against Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon. After Eastman won a stunning upset against the national party\u2019s handpicked nominee, former representative Brad Ashford, Democrats\u2019 national committees declined to spend significant money to help her in the general election, which she lost by just under 5,000 votes. When Eastman was renominated for the seat in 2020, the national party lent its support<\/a>, but the damage was already done. Millions in unanswered ads from previous cycles had defined her image to the electorate, and Bacon, whose prior record was in step with harder line conservatives in his party, moderated his image substantially. He won by over 4 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Despite the headwinds he faced this year, Bacon trounced moderate Democrat Tony Vargas, who ran with the early blessing of the national party, by a margin nearly identical to the margin he beat Eastman by in 2020 \u2014 demonstrating that progressive antipathy is unworkable as either a short-term or long-term strategy if national Democrats hope to wield power rather than appease wealthy donors.<\/p>\n

Elected Democrats have heaped praise on outgoing DCCC Chair Maloney for the unexpectedly strong performance despite the steep losses the party suffered in Maloney\u2019s own backyard. In a twist, the loss of Maloney\u2019s own seat, in the suburban 17th District in New York, is being heralded as an act of self-sacrifice rather than evidence of a severe lapse in judgment.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested<\/a> Maloney should be lauded for his loss, on the grounds that it enabled victory elsewhere across the map. Former presidential contender and current Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., echoed that sentiment<\/a>, declaring himself \u201cfirst on the list\u201d of Maloney fans for supposedly putting himself at risk for the sake of the party.<\/p>\n


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Our DCCC Chairman put himself at risk to support other congressional Democrats. Service before self\u2014 that\u2019s leadership. Mark me first on the list of @spmaloney<\/a> fans. <\/p>\n

Thank you, Sean, for a decade of service and two years in the political trenches.<\/p>\n

— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) November 10, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n