No winner has been called in Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District, four days after Tuesday’s primary. The far-left-backed Jamie McLeod-Skinner holds a massive lead over Biden-backed incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR).
On Friday afternoon, McLeod-Skinner had over 60 percent of the vote with roughly 50 percent of the vote counted, showing the 60-year-old congressman, who has represented the district since 2009, in serious trouble as roughly half the votes are left to be counted.
As noted by the Associated Press, the election was “too close to call,” even though the far-left challenger had a commanding lead, in part because of a printing issue with the ballots in Clackamas County, the state’s third-largest county.
“Blurry barcodes made vote-counting machines reject a large number of ballots in Clackamas County and elections workers were transferring the votes by hand to fresh ballots so they could be tallied,” the Associated Press said, noting that the county includes parts of the Fifth and Sixth Congressional Districts.
With Schrader nearing a potential loss, the White House has already attempted to put a positive spin on one of President Joe Biden’s only endorsements in the primary races.
On Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s new press secretary, told reporters that the White House was “not at all” concerned about Schrader’s potential loss and did not see the president’s endorsement of the Oregon Democrat as a rebuke of his agenda while arguing both candidates were supportive of Biden.
“The race in Oregon was focused on just how much each candidate supported the president. That’s what we saw in this particular race,” Jean-Pierre told reporters. She added that the challenger “ran on an agenda of President Biden’s priorities, including lowering the price of prescription drugs and tackling climate change and the fossil fuel pledge.”
The Fifth Congressional District was recently redrawn in the redistricting process to include more Republican areas — in addition to the district including new parts where Schrader does not have the name recognition — made the incumbent more vulnerable as Republican groups felt this was the year to unseat him.
However, as the congressman has parted ways with his party on some issues, such as being one of the only Democrats to vote against a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, he picked up a challenger backed by the far-left.
But, as chronicled by Breitbart News, Schrader has also run into problems with his district, being accused of not living in the district, and not representing his district by gallivanting across the county on a horse with his wife, using his tax-payer funded office to cover it up.
Last year Breitbart reported that Schrader used his taxpayer-funded office to cover his habit of avoiding work and missing parts of the congressional calendar while using “District Work” periods to train horses for his cross country trip — which his wife had well documented in a blog.
The congressman was also caught sending a “Congressional Update” email to his constituents, which included photos of him visiting residents in his district; however, the congressman was actually enjoying a four-week-long horseback riding vacation when the email was sent.
Then, the Intercept reported earlier this year that a review of the congressman and his wife’s public disclosures, travel records, and statements indicated that he did not refer to any Oregon address in several years’ worth of filings with the Oregon Secretary of State, and instead used his home in Washingon, DC, as his primary residence.
The report further showed that his son appeared to manage and live on a farm in Oregon — the same one he claims as his address in the district. And his wife, whom he met and married in Maryland, refers to the property in the same state as “home.” The Intercept noted that “despite owning property in his district, Schrader does not appear to spend much time in Oregon.”
While the congressman’s election results look grim, Matthew Foldi, a former journalist and Republican candidate for Congress in Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District — the location of the farm Schrader frequently visits when avoiding district work — taunted the congressman about his potential loss on social media.
“I look forward to representing soon to be former congressman [Schrader] and all other Clarksburg, Maryland residents as their new #MD06 congressman in 2023,” Foldi said.
I look forward to representing soon to be former congressman @VoteSchrader and all other Clarksburg, Maryland residents as their new #MD06 congressman in 2023 https://t.co/PapUItYqJ5 by @JacobMBliss #OR05
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) May 18, 2022
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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