Party-Switching Oregon Lawmaker Faces Test on the North Coast in Costly House Race

Cyrus Javadi has won his coastal Oregon House district twice, both times as a Republican. This year he is asking voters to send him back to Salem as a Democrat, a switch that may make his reelection bid the most closely watched curiosity in state politics.

House District 32 stretches from Astoria south to Neskowin. Javadi, 49, upended his standing with the GOP last year in two quick steps. He provided the crucial vote to pass Gov. Tina Kotek's package of transportation tax and fee increases, which included a widely disliked 6-cent gas tax increase. He then changed his party registration to Democrat. Javadi has said he concluded that without new money, no help would reach the wind- and rain-battered roads in his district.

The district has about 2,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, but that margin has not decided recent contests. Republicans flipped the seat in 2020 after Democrats held it for 16 years. Nonaffiliated voters outnumber both parties among the roughly 55,800 voters in the district and could prove decisive, which is why Javadi has been canvassing neighborhoods along the coast.

Republicans are running Max Sherman, a 69-year-old farmer and retired high school teacher from Hebo. Sherman points to his work in agriculture, fishing and forestry, which he describes as the North Coast's economic engines. His campaign combines standard Republican themes, such as cutting regulation and dismantling DEI initiatives, with criticism of Javadi's shifting positions. "A lot of people here have lost trust in him," Sherman said. Like Javadi, he says funding the Oregon Department of Transportation must be a priority, though he casts himself as an anti-tax candidate.

Lisa Lamping, chair of the Clatsop County Republicans, who worked to elect Javadi in 2022 and 2024, described him as an opportunist who once opposed taxes and abortion and is now endorsed by Planned Parenthood. She said reactions among local Republicans range from anger to "good riddance." Former Democratic legislator Betsy Johnson, who represented the area for two decades and ran for governor as a nonaffiliated candidate in 2022, has also endorsed Sherman in TV ads.

Both candidates have raised more than $1 million, which could make the contest the state's most expensive House race this year and has allowed them to buy ads in the Portland market that reaches the district. Sherman called the race "a total toss-up" that "could be a nail-biter."

Javadi presents his evolution as a strength. Raised in a "very conservative" Mormon family in Utah, he said he increasingly found his Republican colleagues' arguments unconvincing. Last year he supported a Democratic bill making it harder for school districts to ban books, citing his gay son, and helped argue for a measure using taxes on healthcare providers to raise federal Medicaid funding. He was the only Republican to back Kotek's $4.3 billion transportation tax plan, saying the reward for doing the right thing was worth the potential costs.

Voters rejected that tax package by a landslide in May. Javadi still believes the state must find more money for roads, but says the vote showed that voters want roads and bridges fixed without a 6-cent gas tax. He says the vote rarely comes up on the doorstep, even after meeting as many as 30 or 40 people in a day.

His campaign is promoting the message that he stands by his values. Some Democrats, including a Tillamook woman who called herself a "big-time liberal," have welcomed the switch. Javadi, who has written lengthy Substack posts explaining his changes of position, said he uses artificial intelligence mainly as an editor and organizer while writing the bulk of each entry himself. He plans to keep knocking on doors until Election Day.