In Oregon’s Sixth District, Democrat Andrea Salinas faces off against Republican Mike Erickson. Here are the websites for both candidates, where you can learn more about them and their positions:

                                                https://www.andreasalinasfororegon.com/

                                                https://mikeericksonforcongress.org/

Andrea Salinas has been a representative in the Oregon House since 2017, so she has a record consistent with Oregon Democratic values. Mike Erickson has been a regular Republican candidate but has not been elected, so he really has no public record. However, like our other marquee races, the airwaves are flooded with commercials for both. Mike Erickson’s history, which is not fully brought out in the ads, decides this race in favor of Salinas.

Erickson has attacked Salinas as soft on crime and as supporting defunding of police. As this is a standard attack line of the GOP against Democrats in this election, Salinas anticipated this attack. Her ads pre-empted it by pointing out that she is the daughter of a police officer and supports funding the police. Erickson has not adjusted his initial attack, but keeps running the same ads.

On the other hand, various groups have run ads against Erickson pointing out that while he supports banning abortions, he paid for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion and even drove her to the clinic. As Erickson’s Wikipedia page correctly points out, Erickson was a regular (losing) candidate for 20 years, from 1988 to 2008. In 2008, Erickson narrowly won the Republican nomination over Kevin Mannix, who distributed information about the abortion story. Prominent Oregon GOP members refused to endorse Erickson for the general election, and he lost to Democrat Kurt Schrader. Schrader then represented the Fifth District in the US House until this election, when redistricting split this district. Schrader ran in the new Fifth District, but lost his primary to Jamie McLeod-Skinner.

Meanwhile, Erickson came out of hibernation to run again in the Sixth District. So is the abortion story true? It is fully documented on his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Erickson . Erickson and many of his prospective constituents know this history from the 2008 race, so Erickson has had a long time to prepare a response. That response is to put his wife in an ad saying the attacks on him are false, but not specifically referring to the abortion story (or any of the attacks).

Really, this is just our local version of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, and of Herschel Walker’s abortion lie campaign in Georgia. Facts matter. Keep Mike Erickson on the sidelines, where he belongs.