Wednesday dawned with Oregon politics in a bleary state after a Tuesday night filled with upsets, slam-dunks, close calls and voting breakdowns.

The long election day ended with campaigns getting strong hints of what direction voting was going. But officials suggested the final count could roll into June before it was known exactly who won what by how much.

In spite of any primary election hangover, the state now moves on to an already hyperactive and historic election in November.

“The general election starts Wednesday — full-court press,” said Betsy Johnson on Tuesday.

The former Democratic state senator from Scappoose is mounting a bid for governor without any party affiliation.

As of late Wednesday, just under one million ballots had been returned, for a turnout of 33.9% – equalling 2018, the last non-presidential primary.

More votes will be added to the count over the next week or more, due to a new voting deadline (planned) and a backlog of ballots in Clackamas County (unplanned).

Under legislation approved last year, any ballot postmarked May 17 or earlier that’s received by May 24 will be counted. Previously, ballots had to arrive by 8 p.m. on election day.

But the biggest question mark Wednesday was the absence of any voting reports from Clackamas County. Oregon’s third most populous county is a linchpin of two congressional races and the crowded Republican primary for governor.

Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall informed Secretary of State Shemia Fagan last week that a printing error was made on ballots printed by Moonlight BPO of Bend.

The resulting blurry bar codes on an estimated two-thirds of ballots could not be read by vote scanning machines.

The state-approved protocol for defective ballots is for a bipartisan team of election workers to duplicate the ballot by hand so it can be scanned.

The fix-it plan is used for the small number of ballots each year that arrive soiled or damaged during delivery.

“It’s not typically done on this scale,” Fagan said on May 11.

All last week and as late as the morning of election day, Fagan expressed confidence that the botched ballots would not significantly delay the Tuesday vote count.

Instead, Clackamas County ended the night with no vote count at all.

Just before midnight, Fagan blasted the county’s election office for downplaying a problem beyond their capacity to solve in anything close to a timely manner.

“The county’s reporting delays tonight are unacceptable,” Fagan said just before midnight on Tuesday. “Voters have done their jobs, and now it’s time for Clackamas County Elections to do theirs.”

By Wednesday night, a trickle of votes from Clackamas County began to show up on the Secretary of State’s website.

Highlights as of early A.M. on Thursday:

Hard feelings and history in governor’s race

Democrat Tina Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan emerged from a scrum of 34 candidates to win their party’s nominations for governor.

The race would be the first in Oregon history with women atop the ballot of both major parties. Johnson wants to make it three women in the race.

Whatever the outcome, a woman will succeed a woman as Oregon’s governor for the first time in 163 years of statehood. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, is barred from the 2022 ballot due to term limits.

Each of the candidates would account for another page of political history if elected.

Kotek would be the nation’s first openly lesbian governor.

Johnson would be the first independent governor since Julius Meier’s election in 1930. Only Republicans and Democrats were elected before or since.

Drazan would be the first female Republican governor in Oregon history – and the first Republican of any kind to win the office since 1982.

The race will be a grudge match for Kotek and Drazan that began on the House floor last year and now moves to the race for governor.

Kotek was the House speaker and Drazan the House minority leader during an acrimonious redistricting process in 2021.

Democrats say Drazan used a parliamentary quirk to slow legislation to a crawl amid a pandemic.

Republicans say Kotek broke a promise to give the GOP equal say on a redistricting panel in exchange for speeding up the pace of voting.

Kotek resigned from the House to run for governor, a route that Drazan then followed.

Kotek easily won the Democratic nomination for governor on Tuesday with 57% of the vote in a field of 15 candidates. Her closest rival, Treasurer Tobias Read, received 32% of the vote and conceded the race Tuesday night.

Drazan’s 23% of the vote among 19 candidates. Former GOP state chair Bob Tiernan was second with 18%. Unlike the Democratic primary where two candidates accounted for nearly 90% of the vote, the Republican race featured larger fragments going to a wide range of candidates.

While Tiernan conceded on Wednesday, Drazan was holding off on declaring victory Tuesday night due to the slowed vote count.

“While all signs point to a victory, we are still waiting for more ballots to be tallied and for the race to be officially called,” she said. “We look forward to celebrating the final outcome soon.”

Drazan is expected to declare the race over at a press conference she scheduled for Wednesday.

Schrader apparantly ousted in 5th Congressional District

The glacial pace of the final vote counting had its biggest impact on the 5th Congressional District primaries. The radically redrawn district had its western border moved from the Pacific coast to Interstate 5. On the east side, it crossed the Cascades to scoop up northern Deschutes County.

U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, ran for re-election knowing less than half of the voters were constituents in his old district. He quickly faced challenges on his political left and right flanks from candidates charging he was too conservative or too liberal for district voters.

Terrebonne attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner ran in the Democratic primary as a progressive critic, slamming Schrader as an obstacle to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to push President Joe Biden’s agenda through Congress.

McLeod-Skinner also highlighted Schrader’s large contributions from pharmaceutical companies and portrayed his vote against legislation to loosen restrictions on Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices as payback for the donations.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former Oregon Gov. Barbara Roberts endorsed McLeod-Skinner. Most significantly, her bid to oust Schrader won the backing of local Democratic parties in four of the five counties in the district.

Schrader spent $3.4 million – six times McLeod-Skinner’s total – to portray himself as a mainstream moderate in an Oregon Democratic Party that had shifted far to the left during his time in office.

With Democrats holding a razor-thin 221-208 majority over Republicans in the U.S. House, the national party swung behind Schrader’s re-election.

Pelosi endorsed Schrader, even though he had opposed her return to the speakership when Democrats won back control of the House in 2018.

Biden waded into the race on April 24, giving Schrader his first congressional primary endorsement of 2022.

“We don’t always agree, but when it has mattered most, Kurt has been there for me,” Biden said.

On Tuesday night, progressives were jubilant as returns showed McLeod-Skinner winning 60% of the vote.

But the optimism was tempered by the lack of any results coming out of Clackamas County, which makes up 45% of Democratic registration in the district. Schrader lives in the county and the first returns posted early Wednesday showed him winning about 57% of the Democratic vote in the county.

Based on past turnout and current trends, Schrader was certain to close the gap with McLeod-Skinner as more votes came in, but was unlikely to receive enough support to alter the outcome and stave off defeat. But the final determination was likely several days away.

McLeod-Skinner said late Tuesday that she supported the postmark voting and was confident that Clackamas County officials would ensure all votes were counted, even if it took much longer than she and her supporters anticipated.

“I can wait — I have a lot of thank you notes to write,” McLeod-Skinner said.

The new alignment also has the smallest Democratic voter registration advantage of the five districts in Oregon with Democratic voter registration margins (The 2nd district has a wide Republican majority).

With a relatively smaller gap to overcome than other seats, the 5th district race attracted five Republican candidates. Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer was running well ahead of the pack, with 42% of the vote.

Chavez-DeRemer is a resident of Clackamas County and any additional ballots to be counted are likely to only add to her lead. Bend businessman Jimmy Crumpacker was second with 30% of the vote.

If McLeod-Skinner and Chavez-DeRemer are the nominees, the race will feature two candidates who don’t live in the district – and therefore can’t even vote for themselves.

Unlike state lawmakers, members of the U.S. House do not have to be residents of their district. The U.S. Constitution only requires they are residents of their state.

With redistricting across the nation in 2022, numerous congressional candidates across the country – including many in Oregon – ran in newly drawn districts where they do not live.

McLeod-Skinner lives in Crooked River Ranch in Jefferson County, just over the Deschutes County line. Her home’s mailing address is Terrebonne, a town in Deschutes County.

While the 5th district includes a small number of voters in Jefferson County, they aren’t in the area where McLeod-Skinner lives.

DeRemer’s home in Happy Valley is outside the northern end of the district in Clackamas County.

Stephenson-Helt run-off likely for BOLI

The race for the non-partisan position of commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries was by different measures both a landslide win for Portland labor lawyer Christina Stephenson – and a disappointment.

Christina Stephenson ran up a large lead over her six rivals in the race, winning 48% of the vote – well in front of former Rep. Cheri Helt, R-Bend, with 19%.

But Stephenson was falling just short of the over 50% required to skip a run-off in November. The current commissioner, Val Hoyle, won 52% in a three-way race in May 2018, a margin that made her the outright winner. She still had to wait until January 2019 to take office.

While the office is officially non-partisan, Stephenson is a progressive Democrat who received backing from public employee unions. Helt is a moderate Republican backed by business groups.

The race for the office often known by its acronym as “the BOLI,” got off to a late start. Hoyle had filed for re-election in 2022, but switched early last December to a bid for Congress.

Salinas winning primary in new 6th Congressional District

Rep. Andreas Salinas, D-Lake Oswego, was leading in the Democratic race for the newly created 6th Congressional House District. It has a 6% Democratic voter registration majority.

Salinas had just under 38% of the vote tallied as of late Wednesday.

Carrick Flynn was running second with 19%, despite receiving a record-breaking $12 million in independent expenditures on his behalf. The money came from a political action committee linked to cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, an American based in the Bahamas.

Flynn conceded Tuesday night and said he would actively support Salinas in the general election.

Another top contender, Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, D-Woodburn, conceded defeat late Tuesday.

Mike Erickson of Lake Oswego, who won Republican nominations for a different congressional seat in 2006 and 2008, was leading the GOP race in with 34% of the vote.

Erickson fueled his first bid for Congress in 14 years by loaning his own campaign $640,000. He defeated Rep. Ron Noble, R-McMinnville, and was second with just under 20% of the vote.

While the number of votes is not as large as in the 5th district, the 6th district includes a portion of Clackamas County. The final vote totals could change as the damaged ballots are counted, but the projected winners are expected to stay the same.

Salinas, Alonso Leon, and Noble all gave up a chance to run for re-election to the Legislature in order to seek the congressional seat.

The gamble is paying off so far for Salinas, but Alonso Leon and Noble will be out of office when new lawmakers are sworn in next January.

Wyden wins and Perkins seeks re-run in U.S. Senate race

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, easily won the Democratic primary for the seat he has held since 1996. As of Wednesday afternoon, Wyden had 89% of the vote. He’s seeking another six-year term in the seat he’s held since 1997.

On the Republican side, Jo Rae Perkins of Albany was leading the GOP primary with 32% of the vote. Darin Harbick, owner of Harbick’s Country Inn and Harbick’s Country Store in the McKenzie River Valley, was second with 30% of the vote. The slow ballot count in Clackamas County could affect the outcomes.

If Perkins wins the primary, it will be her second race for the U.S. Senate in two years. She won the Republican nomination in 2020 against Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon. Merkley won with 56% of the vote, while Perkins received 39%.

Perkins’ association with the QAnon conspiracy posed a problem for other Republicans running for office in 2020, with some candidates declining to appear at party events in which she took part.

Late switch working for Hoyle in bid for 4th Congressional District

Hoyle – the current commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industry won the Democratic primary for the 4th Congressional District with 65% of the vote.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, the dean of the Oregon congressional delegation, announced on Dec. 1 last year that he would not seek re-election to the seat he had held since 1987.

Hoyle, who had previously been House majority leader in Salem, jumped into the race the same day. DeFazio quickly endorsed her as his successor.

Hoyle will face Republican Alek Skarlatos of Roseburg, the lone GOP candidate. It will be his second bid for the congressional seat. He was the Republican nominee against DeFazio in 2020, losing a surprisingly close race.

Skarlatos gained acclaim as one of three men who tackled a terrorist who opened fire with an AK-47 automatic rifle aboard a Thalys high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015. Two people were wounded. He portrayed himself in the 2017 Clint Eastwood-directed film “The 15:17 to Paris” about the incident.

In 2020, Skarlatos returned to Paris to testify in the trial in Paris of Ayoub El Khazzani, the Moroccan national he had helped subdue. El Khazzani was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Skarlatos’ high profile from the Paris train incident attracted national Republican interest, who recruited him to run in 2020. Despite an increasingly conservative district, DeFazio had won five races in a row against his perennial opponent, Art Robinson of Cave Junction. Robinson switched to a race for the state Senate, eventually winning the election in November.

Skarlatos raised $3.5 million – allowing him to keep on par with DeFazio’s significant campaign warchest. DeFazio won by just under 25,000 votes out of more than 450,000 votes cast. It was the closest race of the congressman’s career.

DeFazio waited until redistricting was completed by the Legislature in 2021 to announce that he would not seek re-election. The final map moved the district boundaries to include a more Democratic-friendly mix of voters that a candidate other than DeFazio could hold for the party.

Primary slam-dunks for trio in Congress

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Beaverton, U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, and U.S. Rep Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, won their party’s primaries in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd congressional districts, respectively. All three districts have prohibitively large voter majorities of the incumbent’s party.