US Midterms 2026
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Janelle Bynum, a Democrat who has represented Oregon's 5th congressional district since 2025 after flipping the seat in 2024, seeks re-election in 2026 against Republican Deschutes County commissioner Patti Adair.
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Recent media coverage for Janelle Bynum.
Congresswoman Bynum responds to school shooting: Rep. Janelle Bynum (OR-05) issued a statement after the Silver Rail Elementary School shooting in Bend.
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Janelle Bynum was born on January 31, 1975, and grew up in Washington, D.C., where she attended Banneker High School and graduated from The Madeira School.
She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Florida A&M University in 1996, where she held a scholarship from Boeing, and a Master in Business Administration from the University of Michigan in 2000.
After college she worked at General Motors as a steering systems engineer while pursuing her MBA. In 2002 she moved to Clackamas County, Oregon, to help her mother-in-law run a McDonald's franchise.
She and her husband, Mark, have four children, live in Happy Valley and own several McDonald's franchises in the Portland area.
Janelle Bynum won election to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2016 from the 51st district, defeating Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer by 51% to 49%, and she beat Chavez-DeRemer again in 2018 with 53% of the vote.
She was re-elected in 2020 and, after redistricting placed her in the 39th district, in 2022. In January 2022 she lost the Democratic caucus nomination for Speaker to Dan Rayfield, and in February 2022 she became the first Black person in Oregon's history to receive votes for Speaker of the House.
As chief sponsor, she backed the Oregon CHIPS Act, a $210 million semiconductor initiative passed in 2023. On June 21, 2023, Bynum announced her bid for Oregon's 5th congressional district, then held by Chavez-DeRemer.
She defeated Jamie McLeod-Skinner in the May 21, 2024, Democratic primary and won the general election on November 5, 2024, becoming the first Black member of Congress elected in Oregon. She serves on the Committee on Financial Services.
The 5th district includes portions of the Portland suburbs and stretches south through the eastern parts of Marion and Linn counties to Bend, and Bynum flipped it in 2024 with 47.7% of the vote. In the 2026 Democratic primary she won 82.0% of the vote against marketing coordinator Zeva Rosenbaum.
Her Republican opponent is Patti Adair, a Deschutes County commissioner who won the Republican primary with 59.6% of the vote over political communications consultant Jonathan Lockwood. Pacific Green Party candidate Andrea Townsend is also on the ballot for the general election on November 3, 2026.
