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State Rep. Janelle Bynum and Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be competing for a comparatively small slice of voters who fall somewhere in the political middle.

The stage is set, and it’s a rematch.

The candidates for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District — state Rep. Janelle Bynum and Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer — have gone head-to-head twice before in Oregon House races in the Portland suburbs.

But now they’ll face off in a new territory, a swing district that in 2022 was decided by just two percentage points. In a presidential election year all but certain to divide Americans along national party lines, political experts say these two candidates will confront unique challenges appealing to a key group: moderate voters.

In the 2022 general election, more than a quarter of the votes in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District — nearly 100,000 people — came from people who registered as non-affiliated or with the Independent Party, according to Oregon Secretary of State voter registration data.