by Lynne Terry, Oregon Capital Chronicle
August 22, 2024
Political prognosticators for months have talked about the nation’s battleground states, and Oregon has not been included in the mix.
That’s because Oregonians almost certainly will vote in November for Democrat Kamala Harris for president, judging from recent election history.
Oregon was once a Republican bastion in presidential elections, but no Republican presidential candidate has taken the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Most of Oregon’s presidential elections have not been especially close since then, either. Donald Trump only pulled in 39% of the vote in 2016 and 40% in 2020, giving a landslide to Democrats. Other Republican presidential candidates in the last three decades haven’t done much better.
Presidential victories often help lower-ballot candidates from the same party, which could matter in Oregon where several key races are competitive.
The highest-profile race is in the 5th Congressional District between incumbent Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Democrat Janelle Bynum. The 6th District rematch contest, between incumbent Democrat Andrea Salinas and Republican challenger Mike Erickson, could feel the ripple effects, too, and so might a few legislative races.
But the local record of top candidates helping lower-ballot contenders win by riding on their coattails is mixed, and even nationally, research has been inconclusive.
The statistics-oriented 538 website cited studies finding an advantage from a fifth to half of a percentage point for a down-ballot candidates if their party’s candidate for president is ahead by 1 point, with the advantage growing as the lead increases. Those amounts might not be large enough to matter in most cases, but if the local race is close – as it was in the Oregon 5th and 6th districts in 2022 – it can be decisive.
After evaluating numbers from 1992 to 2016, the 538 site reported, “We found a strong correlation (0.655) between the national margins for presidential and House races.” Earlier studies have found that popular presidential candidates tend to add to the number of U.S. House seats their party wins, though results can vary depending on the local conditions.
Not all voters respond the same way. Columbia University Professor Robert Erikson has noted the impact of “balancing” when voters choose candidates across party lines – such as a president from one party and a member of Congress from another – to keep each party in check.
And, of course, different states and regions have different records. In Oregon, there’s very limited evidence of a coattail effect in congressional races. For example, in the last four general elections, Republicans continued to win by landslides in the heavily Republican 2nd Congressional District in eastern Oregon in both the 2016 presidential year and in the 2022 midyear election. Democratic wins in other congressional races also showed no coattail effect in presidential years compared with midterm elections.
And presidential races have not appeared to have much of an impact on the Legislature. From the election of 2006 to present, each general election has yielded between 22 and 30 Republican House members. The Republican high spot came with the midterm elections of 2010 and 2006, which would indicate a little advantage for the party in nonpresidential years. The Republican low spots fell in the midterm of 2018 and the presidential of 2020. Overall, the shifts have been minor and subtle over the last dozen years.
In a looser sense, if one of the parties has significantly more energy and enthusiasm – which may derive in part from national politics – that can filter down to local candidates and party organizations. Oregon Democrats may be feeling some of that with Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy in recent weeks.
But a true presidential coattail effect is likely to be short, if anything, in Oregon.
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Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: [email protected]. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.