For progressive Democrats, the ouster of U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader in the May primary removed an entrenched incumbent undermining the party’s agenda.

Republicans retooled their campaign effort from targeting a seven-term congressman to beating a more liberal candidate in the Oregon congressional district with the narrowest partisan gap.

For political forecasters, it’s the latest twist in the fight for control of Congress. One district in a small state — “OR-5” — will likely play an outsized role in determining who rules on Capitol Hill.

Democrats hold a 220-209 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, with six vacancies. All 435 seats are on the November ballot, with Republicans needing to pick up only five seats to take control.

Redistricting has given most seats a significant to insurmountable partisan tilt for one party or another.

The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, a top election monitor and forecaster, puts the number of seats that are the political equivalent of a coin flip at 29.

Oregon’s 5th Congressional District is on that list.

The outcome there is seen by some forecasters as a bellwether election that will show the partisan path of the nation. Two years after a Democratic surge swept President Donald Trump out of the White House and gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress, the drift has reversed. 

Right now, President Joe Biden’s slumping approval ratings amid an inflation spike show a host of races across the country trending more conservative.

“The trajectory of OR-5 ratings is, in a small way, an indication of what we see as the pro-Republican trajectory of this election cycle,” the Center for Politics posted in a June 8 update of its ratings.

Many Oregon Democratic leaders would challenge the assumption that Schrader’s loss is the Republican’s gain.

Terrebonne attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who defeated Schrader, sees the result as evidence Schrader never got the pulse of his realigned district. His sometimes contrarian votes and provocative statements turned off voters.

“The reason we won the primary, despite being outspent by a flood of corporate money, was because I showed up and talked about how we can work together,” she said Friday.

Former Happy Valley mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer won the GOP primary. She agrees that voters were dissatisfied with Schrader, but for different reasons.

“Democrats refuse to address any of the pressing issues of the day and don’t understand what everyday voters are feeling,” she said Friday.

Schrader has spiked the partisan polarization by saying in a television interview earlier this month that the 2022 election overall will show Oregon voters are “tired of extreme far-right Trumpites” on the Republican side and the “socialist drift” of Democrats.

The 5th district was the oddest creation to come out of the Democratic-led redistricting required to reflect population changes since the 2020 U.S. Census.

It’s topography scatters the 521,813 voters in a curving stretch from Portland in Multnomah County, through Clackamas, Marion and Linn counties, then over the Cascades following U.S. Highway 20 to take in the northern part of Deschutes County.

The district has 169,844 registered Democrats and 144,776 Republicans. 

It’s the smallest partisan gap of any of Oregon’s six congressional districts. Only party members could vote in the primary to choose their nominees.

But the true political split can’t be measured by Democrats vs. Republicans alone.

The wild card is the biggest bloc — 170,033 non-affiliated voters, who could not cast ballots in either primary.

Using past election results in the precincts that make up the new district, the Center for Politics rates the district as having a Democratic advantage of just 3 percentage points. 

Proof of the importance of the race is in the amount of attention poured into the race by national party and activist groups.

Top Democrats like President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who had endorsed Schrader have swung behind McLeod-Skinner.

Oregon’s two Democratic senators — Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — had remained publicly neutral in the primary but are now outspoken advocates for the new Democratic standard-bearer in the 5th district.

McLeod-Skinner has been placed on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red-to-Blue list of priority campaigns.

“Now more than ever, Oregon families deserve leaders who will fight for them, not far-right extremists,” said Johanna Warshaw, a spokesperson for the congressional campaign committee.

Chavez-DeRemer has been named a “Young Gun” by the National Republican Congressional Committee. It signals her campaign is on the highest priority list of races.

Even before the primary, she was selected for help from the Elevate Political Action Committee, linked to U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, the No. 3 Republican in the House, to build a “pink wave” of Republican women candidates.

“I think we will have a historic Republican victory — they’re running for the hills,” Stefanik said at the event.

Both candidates are leveraging the possible national repercussions of their race to raise funds for what is expected to be one of the most expensive congressional races in the country.

“We’re going toe-to-toe with the full weight of the Republican fundraising machine, and we’ll need all the grassroots help we can get. Can Jamie count on you to contribute today?,” McLeod-Skinner’s campaign wrote in an email blast sent Thursday.

Since the primary, both candidates have cast the other as too extreme — in opposite political directions.

Chavez-DeRemer has used Biden’s initial endorsement of Schrader as evidence that McLeod-Skinner was “even too liberal” for the president. 

“My opponent is out of touch with the vast majority of Oregonians who are frustrated with record inflation, a rise in crime, and a broken education system,” DeRemer said.

Democrats have portrayed Chavez-DeRemer as an acolyte of Trump who has not challenged the debunked claims of the 2020 presidential election being “stolen” by Biden.

“We don’t need an extremist who is trying to divide us and weaken our democracy,” McLeod-Skinner said, adding, “My opponent has sided with dangerous election deniers and wants to ban abortion — this does not reflect the values of most Oregonians.”

Nathaniel Rakich, a senior analyst for the FiveThirtyEight political forecasting website, wrote earlier this year that the projected outcomes in new districts is at best theoretical.

The true partisan political mix won’t be known until voters have their say. But with redistricting unlikely again before the 2030 U.S. Census, what happens in November will reverberate long after.

“Not only 2022, but also 2024, 2026 and throughout the rest of the decade,” he wrote.