When Carrick Flynn was growing up in Vernonia, his family lost their home in the devastating 1996 flood. He graduated from the University of Oregon and Yale Law School, then spent much of the next decade living abroad.

Now, back in Oregon, he wants to leave the state again — this time, to represent it in Congress.

And, despite his status as an electoral novice who’s barely participated in Oregon civic life, Flynn’s campaign has caught the attention of deep-pocketed funders and national political action committees — and drawn the scorn of many of the Democrats who will share the ballot with him in the May primary.

Who is this 35-year-old making waves in the crowded, wide-open field for the state’s first new congressional district in 40 years?

On his tax return, he said, he calls himself a “researcher.” His resume is much more complex.

His LinkedIn page lists stints in eight countries, including less-traveled spots such as Liberia and East Timor. His work there included human rights issues and “poverty eradication,” he said. His time overseas concluded at the University of Oxford, where he helped run its Center for Governance of AI, which is “dedicated to helping humanity navigate the transition to a world with advanced (artificial intelligence),” according to its website.

He returned to the states in 2018 and worked for a time as a member of the research faculty at Georgetown University, focusing on national security, technology law and AI policy. In the fall of 2020, he left the institution “in good standing,” according to a university spokesperson, and returned to his home state.

Flynn said the pandemic, and the way it opened up possibilities for remote work, made him realize that he no longer needed to live in close physical proximity to power.

“As soon as I had an excuse to get out of D.C., I left,” he said. “Oregon has always been home. It’s where my family is. It’s where I want to be.”

Soon after moving back to Oregon, however, he launched a new project that, if successful, would take him back to the nation’s capital. He insists that running for Congress wasn’t on his agenda when he headed west.

“This was not the plan,” he said. “The plan was always to be a behind-the-scenes person.”

But after several friends urged him to consider running, Flynn said, he figured it could be a way to turn some of his research, including in the field of pandemic prevention, into policy.

After living briefly with family members in the Aloha area, Flynn moved into the heart of the state’s newest congressional district. He took up residence in McMinnville, where one of his first political activities was casting a ballot in a countywide election over whether to recall Yamhill County Chair Lindsay Berschauer.

It was the first time Flynn had voted in any election since 2016, and only the second time in the past 14 years. While he had been crisscrossing the globe, Flynn had remained registered to vote in Oregon. But his living situation didn’t always lend itself to voting, he said.

During the 2012 presidential election, for instance, Flynn was living in the southeast Asian nation of East Timor. Flynn said getting a ballot in the mail from Oregon and back to elections officials in time was out of the question.

In 2016, however, Flynn was living in the United Kingdom, and the mail system worked well enough for him to cast his vote.

But in 2020, Flynn was back in the states. That fall, he was in the midst of his move from Washington, D.C., back to Oregon, taking a monthlong road trip to visit friends along the way. He said he realizes that’s no excuse.

“I just messed up,” he said. “Honestly, it was just a lack of foresight while I was moving. I was thinking about the other logistics elements. I did try to spend a few hours seeing if I could untangle it, and at some point I was just like, ‘No, I screwed this one up.’”

But while his sparse voting record is the kind of campaign hiccup that politicians like to avoid, it hasn’t deterred support from several national political action committees. A PAC founded by cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, while operating independently from Flynn’s campaign, has spent more than $5 million to print yard signs and, more importantly, produce and air ads on behalf of Flynn.

While that caused some political observers to scratch their heads, the decision by a separate PAC affiliated with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to spend roughly a million dollars on Flynn’s behalf caused a considerable ruckus among the other candidates in the race.

“It felt like a slap in the face,” said Andrea Salinas, a state representative from Lake Oswego who’s won election three times and been endorsed by the national Latino Victory Fund in her race for Congress. “Why, when we have a crowded field, would (the House Majority PAC) put their thumb on the scale?”

The answer, according to the PAC’s communications director, CJ Warnke, is that the group “is dedicated to doing whatever it takes to secure a Democratic House Majority in 2022, and we believe supporting Carrick Flynn is a step towards accomplishing that goal.”

Flynn said he learned about the national group’s support at the same time his opponents did.

“The House Majority PAC’s job is to protect the Democratic House majority,” he said. “If they believe backing me and my advocacy for the people of Oregon at this stage of the race can help them, then I’m just honored to receive their support.”

The Flynn campaign says it doesn’t know why Bankman-Fried’s Protect our Future PAC is backing the young Oregon candidate. “We haven’t had any conversations with them,” said Flynn campaign manager Avital Balwit.

Flynn doesn’t mention cryptocurrency when he talks about his political priorities and he doesn’t include any references to it in his platform on his website.

Flynn said he knows the barrage of ads on his behalf won’t, in and of itself, win him the race. He said his campaign will do some phone banking as part of its get-out-the-vote effort, but he’s not sure what else is planned.

When asked if he has any indications of what his chances are in a crowded field where little, if any, public polling has been released, Flynn paused.

“I do have a sense,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say.” He would not elaborate.

Switching immediately back to a more formal candidate mode, Flynn added that he’s “really happy to see that my engagement with (voters) and my messages on getting back to the fundamentals, on ensuring we have safety nets in the form of good wages, good jobs, and stability from these sorts of disasters is really, clearly resonating a lot.”

Of course, candidates are typically optimistic about their chances until election results show otherwise. Despite his strong financial backing from national groups, Flynn’s own campaign has brought in donations from fewer than a dozen Oregonians, according to its first quarter funding report with the Federal Elections Commission. Overall, his campaign brought in $830,000 during the first three months of the year.

While Flynn hasn’t garnered much financial support from Oregonians, he has been reaching out to movers and shakers in the district, such as Tualatin Mayor Frank Bubenik.

For the past decade, Bubenik’s city has been split among two Congressional districts. With the coming election, that’s going to change. All of Tualatin will lie within the 6th Congressional District, and Bubenik said it’s an opportunity to consolidate the city’s political influence when it comes to federal issues.

While the mayor said he’s enjoyed a good working relationship with the Congress member who currently represents the bulk of the city, Democrat Suzanne Bonamici, he said he was eager to talk with candidates running for the new district.

And so when Flynn called, Bubenik—after consulting the young candidate’s website—agreed to talk.

“He’s very willing to listen,” said the mayor. “He doesn’t have the ego some people do.”

Bubenik said he’s heard from some of the other candidates running for the Democratic nomination in the 6th District, but none stood out like Flynn.

“We had terrific chats,” he said. “I told him the kind of things I needed here in Tualatin. I talked to other folks who didn’t follow up with some of the things I asked. Carrick did.”

Bubenik was so impressed with Flynn that he agreed to record a television ad on his behalf, despite never having met him in-person. While he’s endorsed candidates in the past, this was Bubenik’s first time putting his support on the line in such a public way. (“It’s kind of weird to see yourself on TV,” he said.)

If he wins this fall, Flynn would be the first person elected to Oregon’s congressional delegation with no prior elected experience in nearly a quarter century, since Oregonians elected then-attorney David Wu in 1998 to represent the 1st District.

That makes the support from federal groups, and in particular the House Majority PAC, all the more curious, said Richard Clucas, a professor of political science at Portland State University.

“There’s no clarity on the purpose and the strategy here,” he said. “When you study elections, there are certain types of characteristics that are considered good traits that candidates have that make them viable. And one of the major characteristics is that you’ve already been elected to office in the district in which you’re running, so that way you have some sort of base of support for running for a higher office.”

There are three Democrats in the May primary who are current or former elected officials, although just one—state Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon of Woodburn, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators’ legislator of the year for 2022 —has had a significant number of constituents within the 6th District.

The other two previously-elected Democratic candidates, Salinas and former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, are both well known in Oregon political circles.

Smith, a Black woman, said she’s “angry” at the House Majority PAC.

“They were not thinking,” said Smith. “They do not understand the politics of change. To overlook women of color is wrong on so many levels.”

Candidates in the race without prior elected experience expressed their frustration at the national PAC money, too. Matt West, an engineer at Intel, was one of five candidates who jointly spoke to the press at the headquarters of the Marion County Democratic Party in Salem on April 12.

“I was shocked” by the House Majority PAC’s decision to spend on behalf of Flynn, said West.

Still, West — an Intel engineer who’s loaned his own campaign at least $400,000 so far — said he’s not sure the outside spending will decide the race.

“I’m committed to making sure the people of the district hear my message,” he said.