As the last Fourth of July fireworks faded to black Monday night, Oregon moved into the stretch drive of the 2022 election season.

With four months to go until the Nov. 8 election, trying to pick the winners in Oregon’s top political races is highly speculative at best. But that hasn’t stopped a growing chorus of prognosticators.

Despite a 36-year winning streak, a Democratic victory in the 2022 election for governor was called “no sure thing.” The race for the supposedly Democratic-tilting 5th Congressional seat was “too close to call.” 

Some of the electoral sparklers and fizzles on display:

Governor: Four-decade winning streak on the line 

Back in 2018, the New York Times came to Oregon in the final two weeks of the race for governor and pronounced the outcome “too close to call” based on analysis by the Cook Political Report and other politically popular trend-watchers.

When the votes were counted, Gov. Kate Brown had defeated the Republican nominee, former Rep. Knute Buehler of Bend.

Brown’s election night exaltations of a “slam-dunk” was an overstatement given she received just 50.1% of the vote. But when minor party candidates were added to the count, Brown beat Buehler by a fairly comfortable margin of just under seven points.

Fast forward four years and the Times was back in Oregon, parachuting in to check out the political landscape. Their report issued on June 28 once again suggested that the Democratic colossus could be toppled for the first time in since 1986.

In what could be a “wave year” for Republicans, the Times said, “even deep-blue Oregon is suddenly competitive.”

Citing “Biden, crime, gas prices,” New York Times reporter Reid J. Epstein wrote, “almost nobody in Oregon seems to be happy.”

Lots of evidence was rolled out to back up the claims of era-upending turbulence.

President Joe Biden’s popularity was falling. Inflation was rising. Brown was unpopular in state polls. Gas and food prices were bruising Oregonians’ wallets.

Unlike 2018, November will be a three-way race to succeed Brown. Along with Democrat Tina Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan, unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson is expected to make the ballot.

All are experienced legislators with sharp elbows, churning out a steady stream of press releases fueled by a week-long blast of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion, guns, and the environment.

Johnson hit Kotek as too cozy with public employee unions and derided her as “Tent City Tina” unable to clean up a city she’s represented in the House since 2007 that even U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, admitted earlier this year is “broken.”

Kotek has grabbed onto Johnson’s gun rights stances that polls show are out of line with a majority of state residents, while hitting Drazan’s “Life wins!” tweet following the repeal of Roe vs. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court that the Republican is a danger to Oregon’s steadfast abortion rights stance.

Drazan has sought to portray herself as the best “not Kotek” candidate for voters who want a change, casting Johnson, a longtime Democratic state senator, as using the unaffiliated run as a gambit to get on the ballot.

All argue over whether Johnson will take more votes from Drazan or Kotek – and which will emerge with what is almost certainly a close plurality win in November.

With so many wedge issues landing at once, the only political certainty at this point in 2022 is uncertainty.

Congress: Flipping the 5th

Oregon’s other top target of national speculation is the 5th Congressional District.

Democrats currently have a 220-210 majority in the House, with five vacancies. Republicans need to flip just five seats to take control of the chamber they lost back in 2018.

Well before the May 17 primary, many political forecasters in Washington, D.C. were saying a primary upset of U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, would open the door for Republicans to flip the district in the fall.

Then it happened. Terrebonne attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner rode a wave of progressive dissatisfaction with the centrist and often vocally contrarian Schrader to victory. She’ll be the Democratic nominee on the Nov. 8 ballot. McLeod-Skinner will face the Republican former mayor of Happy Valley, Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

With Schrader out, the 5th district is essentially an open seat – one of three in Oregon this year. It’s the district with the narrowest partisan margin. In their closed primaries, Democrats moved to the left in rejecting Schrader, while Republicans made the farthest right choice in Chavez-DeRemer.  She’s a protege of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, the congressional leader most actively involved in recruiting and financing conservative women candidates who supported former President Donald Trump.

FiveThirtyEight, the political website run by veteran forecaster Nate Silver, issued a report this week showing Chavez-DeRemer with a 73% chance of defeating McLeod-Skinner.

Silver’s website noted a survey by PPPolls for 314Action, a group advocating the election of candidates who support scientific solutions to issues. The group has endorsed McLeod-Skinner, but the poll they paid for nonetheless showed Chavez-DeRemer leading 42%-41%, with 17% undecided. PPPolls get an A- rating in Silver’s grading of the quality, reliability, and level of partisan influence over its polls.

The Hill, a public policy publication in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, tapped Oregon’s 5th district as one of “seven close races that could decide control of the House.” Republicans need to flip just five seats to take control of the House in 2023. Two other top political tea leaf readers — Cook Political Report and the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia — also have the seat as a toss-up at this early juncture.

Just as in the governor’s race, supporters of McLeod-Skinner say the full impact of the latest U.S. Supreme Court rulings – especially on abortion – hasn’t registered in the latest surveys. They’re counting on the rulings galvanizing suburban centrist voters, especially women, to look past the economic potholes and vote Democratic.

Midnight money madness

It will take just over a week to see how all of the talk and speculation impacts fundraising.

Midnight Thursday was the end of the quarter for congressional fundraising. As the last hours approached, candidates from both parties sent out mass emails asking supporters to make electronic contributions before the witching hour, so they can be counted when records are released this month.

“Kevin McCarthy, Alek Skarlatos, and their radical right-wing cronies are making a big play to flip this district and steal the House majority,” wrote Val Hoyle, the Democratic candidate for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, just before 6 p.m. Thursday.

McCarthy is the House Republican Leader – who would likely become Speaker of the House if Republicans gain a majority. Skarlatos is the GOP nominee in the 4th district, making his second bid to win the seat.

In Republican e-mails, the bold name targets are Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Races for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate operate under the rules of the Federal Elections Commission. It currently requires candidates to file quarterly statements on fundraising and spending. That means reports will be issued this month and in October for the July 1-September 30 period. On Oct. 19 — 20 days before the Nov. 8 election — contributions have to be reported within 48 hours.