United States House of Representatives Elections in Oregon, 2008 - District 5

District 5

See also: Oregon's 5th congressional district See also: Opinion polling for the United States House of Representatives elections, 2008#Oregon

In February 2008, Democrat Darlene Hooley, who had represented Oregon's 5th congressional district since 1996, announced that she would not seek re-election in 2008. The race to replace her was expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation, since the district contained about 2,000 more Republicans than Democrats at that time.

There were two major factors for the competitiveness of the race: first, the demographics of the district had changed dramatically. In June, there were 20,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in the district, a net swing of 22,000 voters since February. Secondly, Republican nominee Erickson won a contentious primary in which an opponent, Kevin Mannix, raised an allegation that Erickson paid for a former girlfriend's abortion. The girlfriend subsequently went public with the information, but Erickson denied knowledge of the event. Mannix refused to endorse Erickson in the general election.

Democratic nominee Kurt Schrader won against Republican nominee Mike Erickson, 166,070 (54.5%) to 116,418 (38.2%). Also competing were Libertarian nominee Steve Milligan, Constitution nominee Douglas Patterson, Pacific Green nominee Alex Polikoff, and Independent Sean Bates.

Oregon's 5th congressional district election, 2008
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage
	Democratic	Kurt Schrader	181,577	54.25%
	Republican	Mike Erickson	128,297	38.33%
	Independent	Sean Bates	6,830	2.04%
	Constitution	Douglas Patterson	6,558	1.96%
	Pacific Green	Alex Polikoff	5,272	1.58%
	Libertarian	Steve Milligan	4,814	1.44%
	Write-ins		1,326	0.40%
Totals			334,674	100.00%
	Democratic hold