Salinas is seeking re-election in Oregon's 6th Congressional District

Democratic US Representative Andrea Salinas will return to Washington DC for a second term in Congress, early voting results showed on Tuesday. As of 8:30 p.m., Salinas had received 54% of the vote in Oregon's 6th Congressional District. Her Republican challenger, Lake Oswego businessman Mike Erickson, got 46%.

National election observers from the Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia Center for Politics predicted Salinas was likely to win.

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Registered Democrats made up about 30% of the district's 480,000 voters who live in and near wine country west of Interstate 5 from Tigard to south of Salem. Republicans made up about 25% of voters, and voters with no party affiliation made up 38%.

The race for Oregon's 6th District was a rematch between Salinas and Erickson, who first ran to represent the new district in 2022, shortly after it was created through redistricting. Salinas won that contest by a margin of just 2.5 percentage points.

In 2024 the dynamics were different.

As the election approached, Salinas had vastly outspent and outspent Erickson, who had largely self-financed his 2022 campaign. Salinas As of mid-October, she had raised more than $5 million and spent $3.7 million on her campaign, according to federal records. In 2022, Erickson raised and spent approximately $3.8 million, with the majority of that money coming from from a $2.7 million personal loan. As of early November, Erickson's campaign had raised about $1.2 million, about half of which he borrowed himself.

Erickson founded and leads AFMS, an internationally successful supply chain and logistics company based in Tigard. Its federal financial disclosures list it as having assets between $25 million and $50 million.

Salinas is a longtime political insider. She worked as a legal counsel for U.S. senators and representatives, then as a lobbyist and political consultant before being elected to the Oregon Legislature in 2017. She served as a state representative for five years and helped pass a law that provided paid family and welfare benefits to workers Sick leave. She supported legislation to extend overtime for farm workers and supported a bill requiring the state's largest utilities to provide clean energy.

In Congress, Salinas has sponsored bills to expand support for people with mental health and substance use problems and to spur wood product innovation in rural communities. In her second term, Salinas plans to fight to lower the cost of living, fight climate change and address the addiction crisis.

Sami Edge covers higher education and politics for The Oregonian. You can reach them at [email protected] or (503) 260-3430.