La Grande forum to feature Oregon 2nd District congressional candidates

Eastern Oregon voters will get a direct look at Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District race when the League of Women Voters Union County hosts a bipartisan forum Thursday, April 30, at Eastern Oregon University’s Ackerman Hall in La Grande. Doors will open for the watch party at 5:30 p.m., the candidates’ forum will begin at 6 p.m. in Room 210, and a live Zoom webinar will connect viewers across the district as the May 19 primary draws closer.

The forum matters well beyond La Grande because Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District covers more than 70,000 square miles across 20 of the state’s 36 counties, stretching from The Dalles and Medford, skirting Bend and Roseburg, to the Idaho border. It is the only congressional district in Oregon with more registered Republicans than Democrats, a political imbalance that has helped make Rep. Cliff Bentz the favorite for reelection. Bentz, an Ontario attorney and former state lawmaker, has held the seat since 2021.

The League of Women Voters Oregon said the April 30 forum will include all six Democratic candidates and the two Republican challengers to Bentz, Peter Larson and Andrea Carr. Oregon journalist Les Zaitz will moderate the event, giving voters a chance to compare the candidates side by side before one Democrat emerges from the primary to face Bentz in the general election Nov. 3.

For Union County readers, the most useful questions are likely to center on the issues that surface again and again in the district: accessibility to a member of Congress, federal spending, Medicaid, rural health care, water rights and irrigation. Those concerns are especially immediate in communities like La Grande, where agriculture, small business, public services and transportation depend heavily on federal decisions made in Washington, D.C.

Larson, a La Grande Republican, has already made constituent access a central critique. At a recent Pendleton forum, he said many residents told him they cannot get in contact with Bentz and do not see him in the district. A separate Democratic forum in Pendleton drew about 45 people and lasted 90 minutes, with candidates focusing on Bentz’s record, government reform and rural health care. Those themes are likely to shape what voters hear in La Grande as the primary campaign moves into its final stretch.