Marsh re-elected as state representative; Krause and Ruby lose races

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news

Three Ashlanders – all Democrats – were represented in county, state, and congressional elections on Tuesday, Nov. 5, with state Rep. Pam Marsh the sole winner among them. She was handily re-elected to her fifth term serving the district.

Marsh celebrated at the Hilton Garden Inn in Medford, which played host to a gathering by the Jackson County Democrats, though the event was somewhat overshadowed by anxieties surrounding the looming outcome of the presidential election, according to Marsh. Ashland School Board member Dan Ruby and Rogue Valley Transportation District board member Denise Kraus lost in their bids to win seats as a representative and commissioner, respectively.

“At this moment, we’re quite in question about what’s happening in the presidential race,” Marsh told Ashland.news via phone Tuesday evening. “What happens there will affect the role that the state plays inevitably, whether or not we have a partner in the federal office or whether we have to play more defense. That’s a big question and that will affect some of the things that we can go after.”

In initial vote totals, Marsh garnered 22,546 (64%) of the votes, defeating Republican Katherine Green, who tallied 12,649 (35.9%) of the votes.

“I certainly would convey my deep appreciation to have another two-year term, I’m honored to represent my community and I’m really grateful for the support that will allow me to continue doing it,” Marsh told Ashland.news via phone. “My first priority in the next few years is continuing on in wildfire recovery. We are not there yet and we need to make sure that we keep following through to provide all the opportunities that we can for people to return to the community, so that’s really No. 1.”

Marsh serves as chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee and said she will be working to stabilize the shelter system, trying to boost housing production, and to continue to bolster the energy transition to renewable sources.

Marsh added she wants to make sure that as the climate changes, people are protected from the impacts therein.

“We are already to a point where we need to look at how we’re going to keep people safe and healthy for years to come,” Marsh said.

“We have a lot of work to do. We’re really still dealing with the destabilization caused by the pandemic in 2021. Public schools that got shook up, we had impact on childcare, on small businesses, on the homelessness numbers, on health care, on mental health.

“We’re still working hard to get on top of those issues and to figure out what the new normal looks like,” she added.

Marsh added that much depends on who is elected president, which was still undecided at the time.

“The real question for the Legislature is, who will be president?” Marsh said, “and what will that mean for how we govern in Oregon?

“I think if Harris is elected, we have a partner in the White House. We can expect that we’ll see some consistent investment in housing and clean energy and supporting our vulnerable working families. And those policies will complement what we want to do here in Oregon. If we have Trump as president, I would anticipate that we’ll be playing much more defense, trying to make sure that our state is protected from aggressive federal policies around deportation, for example, so it’ll be a different thing.”

Ruby was defeated by incumbent Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republican. Ruby, who garnered 92,999 votes or 33.4% of the votes versus Bentzes 177,408 votes and 63.7% of the votes, remained optimistic about future races following the results.

“For an unknown candidate, I think it’s fantastic,” Ruby told Ashland.news Tuesday evening via phone. 

“I will definitely be running again at some point in the near future.”

Ruby said, on average, Democrats generally obtain approximately 29% of votes for the Second Congressional District race.

“Anything better than that (29%) I was happy about,” Ruby told Ashland.news. “I’m excited to see what the final vote count is. It’s a very, very Republican district so it’s really about building for future wins and I feel that I hit the marks that I wanted to.”

Ruby campaigned throughout the Second Congressional District this year, which he said is about the size of the state of Washington.

“It was a lot of driving around and I spent about a third of my time in the car or on the road getting all or part of 20 counties in the district,” Ruby said. “It’s all of southern and central and eastern Oregon, so it’s a huge district.

“It was also a lot of fun to chat with folks,” Ruby added. 

Ruby said he encountered a change in “tenor” among voters once Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

“The mood shifted and folks were pretty excited and mostly what I got is, people would come up and say, ‘I’m not a Democrat,’ they’d say ‘I’m independent’ or ‘I’ve always voted Republican,’ but people were really excited about having a choice with Harris and Walz and also it’s just really fun to chat with folks.

“What I heard across the district was that housing affordability, top priority for everybody, regardless of how I vote,” Ruby said. “Mental health access and substance abuse care is huge for folks, educational opportunities is huge for folks so I felt like my priorities were aligned with the district and those are the things I would love to see, regardless of who’s elected, and which party they represent.”

Krause was defeated by former Medford Mayor Randy Sparacino for Jackson County Commissioner. Krause had 43,153 votes, or 43%, of the votes in early results, versus Sparacino’s 57,075, or 56.9%.

Krause told Ashland.news she had hoped to be a champion for the Jackson County Animal Shelter as commissioner. Her campaign sent out a newspaper-style campaign information in addition to a typed letter from her college-aged son.

“I’m really proud of the campaign that we ran and it’s disappointing,” Krause said. 

“I’ve been told that it’s impossible for a Democrat to win (a Jackson County Commissioner’s race) and I wanted to believe that wasn’t true, if we ran a good enough campaign that maybe we could make the difference. I guess I should believe it now because we left no stone unturned.”

Krause ran for the position two years ago and obtained 42% of the votes.

“The increased name recognition and the better campaign still didn’t make that big of a difference,” Krause said.

“People vote down the party line,” she added. “It’s a difficult time that we’re in, in that it’s just so divided that people are really dug in on party lines. It’s really tragic actually, I think.”

Krause expressed optimism about the support she received.

“We had a lot of support and people volunteering or being on the team or writing postcards or knocking on doors,” Krause said. “So many people were involved in this campaign and it was wonderful working with everybody.”

Krause said she plans to continue to serve the community, including in her role on the Rogue Valley Transportation District board of directors.

“I’m not a quitter,” she said. “I’m still going to work hard.

“I don’t know what’s to come,” she added. “I was pretty focused on being county commissioner and really excited about the possibility about what we could do as a community together to really start addressing some of the challenges that we are facing.”

Email Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at hollyd@ashland.news.