Knute Buehler & Craig Wilhelm

SALEM — Control of the Oregon Senate is up for grabs, but donors are overwhelmingly flooding Bend’s House race with cash in the homestretch of the November general election.

Republican candidate Knute Buehler has raised more campaign cash than anyone else in any House or Senate race in the state, according to The Bulletin’s review of campaign finance records on Tuesday.

The state House appears likely to remain controlled by Democrats no matter which candidate — Buehler or his Democratic opponent, Craig Wilhelm — wins the race to replace Republican Rep. Jason Conger in House District 54. Regardless, the Central Oregon district has become a focal point of state politics in the runup to the election.

Meanwhile, Republicans are eyeing the chance to take the Senate, where Democrats held 16 seats and Republicans had 14 last session.

The Senate races identified by both parties’ leaders months ago as contentious are among the most expensive in the state in terms of campaign fundraising. They will also likely break the million-dollar mark in coming days. Next in line is the Wilhelm-Buehler race, the third-most expensive legislative race in the state.

House Democrats are protecting a four-seat lead in that chamber. But House Democrats have kept a close eye on Bend’s race in hopes of padding the majority.

“There’s something magical in the Democrats about wanting to have seats east of the mountains,” said Len Bergstein, a lobbyist and longtime Oregon political operative.

All of Central Oregon’s House and Senate seats are held by Republicans.

The sources of donations in House District 54 reveal one of the relatively few divides between Wilhelm and Buehler, who are both running as moderates in a district that has 2,195 more Democratic voters than Republicans.

Fifty-one percent of Wilhelm’s cash and in-kind donations, or about $131,000 of $254,000, comes from legislative Democrats and Future PAC, the House Democrats’ campaign arm. Wilhelm has also received money from 352 individual donors, according to his campaign.

Buehler’s campaign has received just more than 1,500 donations. The House Republicans’ Promote Oregon Leadership Fund and other lawmakers account for about $38,000, or 5.9 percent, of Buehler’s $640,000 raised.

There’s irony in the amount of money given to the Buehler campaign. Buehler often cites his involvement in passing a 1994 ballot measure that curbed election campaign spending before the measure was overturned on free-speech grounds by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1997.

House candidates around the time that measure was passed spent about $38,000, or about 6.5 percent of the $580,000 Buehler has spent in the race, according to records cited in the Supreme Court decision.

Candidates can now accept unlimited amounts of money from individuals and companies.

“I’m playing under the rules as they currently exist, not the rules that I wish existed,” 
Buehler said.

Some of Buehler’s money has been used for an ad that portrays Wilhelm’s head on a cartoon body walking around a neighborhood.

The ad, which Wilhelm described as “below the belt,” and which gained attention and some criticism, mentions that Wilhelm didn’t vote in five of 14 elections since he registered to vote in 2008. Deschutes County voter records show Buehler voted in about 93 percent of elections since he registered in 1996.

The ad also notes that Wilhelm’s business, RRT American Services, is registered in Washington. Wilhelm often refers to his business experience as he promises to cut regulations on businesses to attract companies to Central Oregon.

Wilhelm is one of three owners of the company. He said RRT American Services is located in Redmond, Washington, because it’s part of a larger business that was already in Washington and that does its work internationally. RRT American Services mainly recycles metals on military bases.

“While my opponent has been spending an enormous amount of campaign cash on ads attacking me personally — on things that have nothing to do with protecting the future of Central Oregon — I’ve been out on the doors every day talking to voters one-on-one, gaining their support,” Wilhelm said in a written statement.

Buehler has said he doesn’t believe the ad was negative, calling it a matter of transparency.

“Everyone should be able to stand up by their public record,” he said. “It’s nothing personal about it. Those are your civic duties.”

The Wilhelm campaign used the money he was given from a $54,000 Future PAC donation to buy ads, including one featuring him walking through downtown Bend before introducing his campaign tagline, “Love Bend.”

— Reporter: 406-589-4347,

tanderson@bendbulletin.com

“There’s something magical in the Democrats about wanting to have seats east of the mountains.” — Len Bergstein, 
political operative