Dozens of Oregon candidates will coast to victory in unopposed races, safe districts

Flags on a desk in the Senate at the Oregon state Capitol in Salem on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

While many Oregon candidates will spend election night and the following days tensely watching for ballot returns that will spell victory or defeat, dozens of others are already assured of victory.

More than a quarter of the 60-member state House and three state Senate candidates are unopposed. Dozens of other legislative races and three of the state's six congressional districts are in Democratic or Republican strongholds where one party's nominee can count on winning.

The U.S. House is up for grabs, but political analysts expect Democrats to keep and possibly expand their majorities in the Oregon House and Senate. Democrats now hold 35 seats in the House and 17 in the Senate, and just one more seat in each chamber would give them the 60% supermajority required to create new taxes or raise existing ones.

Here's a look at races that won't get much attention on election night:

Democratic U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, Republican U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz and state Rep. Maxine Dexter are expected to sail to victory in their races for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd congressional districts.

Bonamici's 1st District in northwest Oregon and Dexter's 3rd District in Portland and its eastern suburbs are Democratic strongholds. Bentz's sprawling 2nd District, which includes all of eastern Oregon, is strongly Republican.

State House

House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, is unopposed, as are 10 other Democrats: Reps. David Gomberg of Otis, Jason Kropf of Bend, Susan McLain of Forest Grove, Nathan Sosa of Hillsboro, and Travis Nelson, Daniel Nguyen, Rob Nosse, Thuy Tran and Andrea Valderrama of Portland, as well as newcomer Lisa Fragala, a Democrat from Eugene.

Former House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, a Canby Republican who left the Legislature for a failed 2022 run for governor, is unopposed in her bid to return to the House. Current Republican Reps. Bobby Levy of Echo, Emily McIntire of Eagle Point, Mark Owens of Crane and Greg Smith of Heppner are also unopposed.

Nearly two dozen other House nominees are running in safely Democratic or Republican districts and expected to defeat their opponents. They are:

State Senate

Senate Majority Leader Kathleen Taylor and state Rep. Khanh Pham, both Portland Democrats, don't face any opposition in their races for the 21st and 23rd Senate districts. Nor does former House Minority Leader Mike McLane, a Republican running for the 30th Senate District.

At least eight other Senate nominees are in safely Republican or Democratic districts and are expected to handily win. But the Senate will see substantial turnover in January because 10 Republicans — a third of the Senate — lost their ability to run for reelection by missing too many days of work in a 2023 walkout to protest bills on abortion, gender-affirming care and guns.

The nominees expected to easily win their Senate districts are: