Oregon Democrat unseats Republican incumbent, narrows GOP House majority

More than a week after election day, Oregon Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, was defeated by the Democratic candidate, state Rep. Janelle Bynum, in the state's 5th Congressional District, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

It's a tough loss for the Republican Party in a close race, as its majority is now down to 218 seats to the 209 seats controlled by Democrats.

As of Thursday, with 94% of the votes counted, Bynum was leading by more than two points in the race, with 184,023 votes to Republican Chavez-DeRemer's 174,448, a difference of just 9,575 votes.

In 2022, Chavez-DeRemer was elected and became the first woman to represent Oregon in the House of Representatives after defeating her Democratic opponent by two points.

But Bynum, a longtime Republican political adversary, already defeated Chavez-DeRemer several times for the Oregon legislature and now did the same in a pivotal congressional race.

The Democratic candidate's victory comes a month after Fox News Digital reported that Bynum "was the subject of an ethics complaint for allegedly failing to properly report allegations of sexual harassment and assault against a PAC staffer that worked on her campaign."

However, Bynum denied the allegations, which were used by the Chavez-DeRemer campaign but in the end was not enough to beat the challenge.