PORTLAND, Ore. — In May, many Oregon voters will vote in a new Congressional district for the first time in ten years. Oregon went through redistricting in 2021 and added a sixth district to the map, thanks to population growth over the last decade.
The new district includes Yamhill and Polk Counties, the city of Salem, and parts of the Portland metro area, including Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood and Wilsonville.
Because it's a brand new seat, there is no incumbent — and the race is wide open. Sixteen candidates are running, including nine Democrats and seven Republicans. There are some newcomers and some names people might recognize, including two current state representatives and a former Multnomah County commissioner.
But the candidate winning the money race is a Democrat most in Oregon haven't heard of. Carrick Flynn, a 35-year-old who is new to politics, secured a major donation from the House Majority PAC — a Super PAC backed by House Democratic leadership — and has been airing frequent ads on TV and YouTube.
A lot of voters in Oregon share the same question: Who is Carrick Flynn?
Flynn's website says he grew up in the small town of Vernonia and experienced poverty as a child. He attended the University of Oregon and Yale Law School, then lived in a number of different countries abroad, working on humans rights issues and technology like artificial intelligence.
He only recently returned to Oregon.
As Willamette Week first reported, Flynn has never been very politically active — at least as a voter. He's always been registered to vote in Oregon, unlike former gubernatorial hopeful Nicholas Kristof. Flynn voted just twice in the last 14 years, in the 2008 and 2016 general elections. His campaign said that's because he spent so much time out-of-state.
Flynn's campaign has also received huge sums from a PAC called Protect Our Future, funded by a cryptocurrency billionaire named Sam Bankman-Fried. The PAC has spent almost $6 million on Flynn's campaign, much more than his challengers have on hand.
On top of that, Flynn received $1 million from the House Majority PAC. That's notable, KGW political analyst Len Bergstein explained, because it signifies that Democratic leadership have zeroed in on Flynn as their preferred candidate.
"There's a lot of reasons why Congressional district six is important. The stakes are high, control of the United States House of Representatives is up and almost every seat matters," Bergstein said. "The Democratic race is also important because there's a bunch of candidates and all of a sudden one candidate, who is virtually unknown and really hasn't voted in a lot and demonstrated a lot of interest in politics, is all of a sudden the granter in the sweepstakes for money getting $1 million from a national political campaign. [The House Majority PAC is] supposed to elect Democrats, that's their job, but they're not supposed to step into a contested primary."
Other Democratic candidates running for the seat agree, and condemned the donation earlier this week.
"This effort by the political arm of the Democratic establishment to buy this race for one candidate is a slap in the face to every Democratic voter and volunteer in Oregon," said Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Lake Oswego). "It is especially concerning in a year when all resources must go to protecting the Democratic majority."
"This is a highly competitive Democratic primary with many strong candidates," said Loretta Smith, a former Multnomah County commissioner. "The field includes four women, three of which are women of color, and two men who all have experience working in the legislature, local office, science, the military and healthcare."
The group of candidates, which included Salinas, Smith, Kathleen Harder, Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, Cody Reynolds and Matt West, also pointed to Flynn's support from Bankman-Fried as suspicious at a time when the cryptocurrency industry is looking to increase its influence in Washington.
When asked how the massive donations came to be, Flynn pointed to his platform and did not offer any explanation for the cryptocurrency link.
"I am running on a core belief that this pandemic — and its impacts on our health and economy — could have been avoided with stronger, science-based leadership. This message is resonating not only here in the 6th District, but across the country," Flynn said in a response to emailed questions. "Myself and other candidates have received the independent backing of individuals who share this commitment to future planning, but my campaign has no direct engagement or funding from these sources."
According to Bergstein, because the crypto industry is so new, its goals are still ambiguous.
"It's hard to know exactly what they want. He seems to have a little bit different point of view about regulating cryptocurrency, just reading the national stories. It's not exactly that [Bankman-Fried] wants to deregulate the industry, but it's unclear what his motivation is," Bergstein said. "He says in the stories that he's been quoted, that he's drawn to Carrick because he's a smart guy, he's interested in pandemic issues and preparedness, he's a science oriented candidate. It obviously raises so many questions and suspicions ... people are cynical about someone who's going to pump so much money into an unknown candidate."