Democrats win supermajority in Oregon House, Senate

Oregon Democrats appear to have eked out a supermajority in both the state House and Senate, with a narrow win confirmed in a rural Woodburn-based House seat late Tuesday.

Tuesday was the deadline for voters to fix missing or mismatched signatures on their ballot envelopes. Campaign staff and volunteers for Rep. Tracy Cramer, R-Gervais, and Democratic challenger Lesly Muñoz have spent days tracking down voters to make sure their ballots were counted in the closest race for an Oregon House seat.

Muñoz, a labor organizer from Woodburn, appears to have prevailed by just 161 votes out of more than 20,800 cast in the 22nd House District in northern Marion County. Her victory doesn’t just mean Democrats regain the seat they lost two years ago — it gives House Democrats the three-fifths majority needed to increase taxes or pass new taxes without Republican support. That’s especially notable heading into the 2025 session, as lawmakers work to craft a multi-billion-dollar transportation funding package.

Muñoz described her victory as a win for farmworkers in a statement issued by the farmworkers’ union Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, which supported her campaign with bilingual calls and canvasses. The district is the only majority-minority Oregon House district, and nearly 48% of its residents are Hispanic.


https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/11/27/democrats-win-supermajority-in-oregon-house-senate/