• OR-05: Willamette Week's Sophie Peel reports that three former staffers for Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner allege that her driver feared for his safety after two physical altercations with the candidate. The article follows an October piece in the Oregon Capitol Chronicle that reported that staffers from McLeod-Skinner's 2020 and 2022 runs "yelled at and berated her staff," though there were no allegations of violence in that story.
The driver, who was not identified by name in WW's article, wrote to a fellow staffer days before Election Day, "I’m scared she’s gonna hit me. … She’s punched me a few times like while I was driving and it wasn’t in malice just to like alert me to a car or something but now it’s different." Peel writes the driver "confirmed the physical contact to WW, as well as the veracity of the text messages, but declined to comment further."
McLeod-Skinner, who is seeking a rematch with Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, accused one of her rivals in the May 21 Democratic primary, state Rep. Janelle Bynum, of being behind the allegations.
"To suggest that I would ever physically hit or harm a staffer is absolutely outrageous and categorically false, and unfortunately appears to be motivated and orchestrated by my opponent Janelle Bynum, her staff and her allies," McLeod-Skinner said. A former McLeod-Skinner adviser who has since advised Bynum told WW that the driver feared for his safety, but McLeod-Skinner doesn't appear to have provided any evidence that Bynum's camp is advancing the story.
McLeod-Skinner's wife, Cass McLeod-Skinner, also provided a statement saying the driver was removed before Election Day because he'd "repeatedly lied to Jamie and other staff, and I know through real-time accounts that he put Jamie in dangerous situations while driving."