HD-26: Adamson looks to ride Democratic wave to House seat

Jessica Adamson (D-Sherwood) just might be a microcosm of the party identity crisis many HD-26 voters are dealing with.

“I joined the party of Tom McCall; people willing to think big,” Adamson said of being a former member of the Republican Party. “That party left me, and eventually I had to leave it. I became frustrated with an increasingly divided party that became a narrow tent. There was no final straw for me in leaving the party, but I found I was able to me more myself as a Democrat than as a Republican.”

Adamson grew up Republican in Albany, and she’s worked in Salem for Republicans as an aide for former Republican state legislators Jeannette Hanby and Lynn Lundquist. She joined the Democratic Party last November, shortly before declaring her candidacy for the HD-26 seat.

“Jessica speaks well to what people are going through in that district,” FuturePAC executive director Michele Rossolo said. “A lot of Oregonians that live in that district are like her; they have become disenchanted with the Republican Party.”

The shifting voter demographics in the district have closed the Democrat-Republican voter registration gap, but the GOP still has a slim lead. So, if Adamson wants the seat, she will have to appeal to more conservative members in the district. She says that won’t be a problem; Adamson still describes herself as a fiscal conservative, and she talks about the issues of changing land use policies in order to encourage business. As a former lobbyist for the construction industry, she brings unique knowledge in that area.

“My experience is largely on the commercial side, but commercial and residential issues play off each other. There’s this constant chicken-and-egg process in the industry,” Adamson said of the downturn in the housing market. “Construction is the canary in the coal mine. If it starts struggling, other industries follow. Construction requires lumber, steel, etc. All those industries interplay.”

But it is her family, and issues that young families have to face that Adamson wants to help represent in the state house. If elected, she would and Sara Gelser (D-Corvallis) would be Oregon’s only female representatives with young children.

“I’ve cut a lot of soup labels and lots of box tops,” Adamson said. “It’s that experience … when I’m sitting there cutting these out, it’s hard to believe that it’s come to this. We’re clipping box tops to provide one field trip, per class, per year. It breaks my heart that that’s where we are.”

Adamson is not the only parent in the race. She is up against Rep. Matt Wingard (R-Wilsonville). Wingard has a 14-year-old son, but his parenting has come under intense scrutiny after Adamson and FuuturePAC raised charges through campaign mailers and tv commercials that Wingard hit his child over the head with a screwdriver in 2001.

The information in the mailers was not entirely surprising (Wingard came forward on his own accord to talk about the incident in January), but as the campaign has intensified, Adamson has not failed to make Wingard’s personal issues a central point in the campaign. And she’s been unapologetic about it.

“In January, Matt said that he wanted to be judged on the totality of his life,” Adamson said. “This is a community of family nights and football games. His actions are not of a community that I know and love. Voters deserve to hear the truth.”

Wingard said that when it came to the community’s values, HD-26 voters especially valued not having to pay more taxes.

“People in this district do not want to see their taxes raised,” Wingard said, noting that if re-elected, he has committed to not raising taxes, while Adamson won’t make that same promise. “She plays coy one way or the other.”

Wingard was quiet about his campaign, but he has responded to Adamson’s personal attacks. A letter from his son’s mother was circulated that accuses Adamson of taking advantage of a personal situation for partisan reasons.

“Democrat Jessica Adamson believes that ‘as a mother,’ she can use my son to politically smear his father,” Stacy Pico wrote. “By using my child as a political tool Mrs. Adamson proves she has a morally flawed view of motherhood that, I believe, disqualifies her for any public office. I urge you to vote against her.” Wingard said he believes there has been a backlash to Adamson’s attacks.

The District: HD-26 encompasses Washington County, including Sherwood, Wilsonville, and Aloha and extends west to Henry Hagg Lake.

The Demographics: Last time around, Rep. Jerry Krummel handily won re-election with close to 60 percent of the vote. But two years later Krummel has moved on and Democratic volunteers have been registering voters as if their life depended on it. But the GOP still holds the edge, with 16,374 registered voters to the Democrats’ 14,329.

The Intangible: Screwdriver.

The Issues: Wingard has gone after Adamson hard on property taxes. He has also cautioned that Adamson works for Associated General Contractors, a company that has previously asked for gas tax hikes. Adamson calls herself fiscally conservative, and says that education and economic development would be her biggest priorities.

The Controversies: An article appeared in the Oregonian in September that detailed the charges of Wingard hitting his son over the head with a screwdriver, as well as other incidents cited by a mailer sent out by FuturePAC. That prompted the letter that Wingard had his son’s mother send out.

The Money: Adamson has handily raised $143,464.52 in cash and has also received $191,408.15 of in-kind support, including help from FuturePAC. Wingard has raised $73,481.00 in cash and also gotten $25,564.56 in in-kind support.

The voter reach: Adamson has been on television with an ad focusing on the screwdriver incident, and FuturePAC has assisted Adamson by distributing a flyer highlighting the incident. Wingard would not say if he planned to run television ads in the final days of the campaign.