by Oregon Capital Chronicle Staff, Oregon Capital Chronicle
September 11, 2025
Thursday marks the official start of the 2026 election season in Oregon, as candidates for state and local offices are finally able to file for office.
Next November, Oregon voters will elect a U.S. senator, six members of Congress, governor, labor commissioner, 15 state senators and 60 state representatives, as well as hundreds of local officeholders.
The Capital Chronicle has covered candidates as they’ve announced campaigns and will update this live blog throughout the day Thursday and during the six months before the filing deadline of March 10, 2026. Links in the text below will take you to further coverage of the candidates.
U.S. Senate
Incumbent Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat in the Senate since 2009, confirmed in July that he’ll run for another term, saying that he felt like he needed to continue to serve because of the “magnitude of the darkness and danger” presented by President Donald Trump. Merkley, who has cruised to reelection with more than 55% of the vote in past campaigns, isn’t expected to face a serious challenge.
Congress
All six of Oregon’s members of Congress — Democrats Suzanne Bonamici, Janelle Bynum, Maxine Dexter, Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas and Republican Cliff Bentz — are expected to seek reelection. Oregon was a congressional battleground in the past two cycles, with national Democrats and Republicans pouring money and resources into the 4th, 5th and 6th Congressional districts represented by Hoyle, Bynum and Salinas. So far, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has named only Bynum to its “frontline” list of potentially vulnerable incumbents, while the National Republican Congressional Committee didn’t include any Oregon districts in its list of top targets.
Governor
Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, elected in 2022 after nearly a decade as speaker of the Oregon House, hasn’t yet confirmed her reelection bid. So far, the most notable Republican candidate is Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell. House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, Kotek’s 2022 Republican rival, sparked speculation that she’ll run again through spending campaign money on polling but has yet to confirm her plans.
Labor Commissioner
Democratic incumbent Christina Stephenson, who filed to run on Thursday, has kept a relatively low profile during her four years as commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. No other candidates have yet emerged.
Oregon Senate
Half of the 30 seats in the Oregon Senate, where Democrats hold an 18-12 majority, are up in 2026. Oregonians will elect at least four new senators because Republicans Daniel Bonham of The Dalles, Cedric Hayden of Falls Creek, Kim Thatcher of Keizer and Suzanne Weber of Tillamook are barred from running for reelection because voters amended the state constitution to bar lawmakers who skip 10 or more floor sessions from running again. The four participated in a six-week walkout in 2023 to protest Democratic bills.
Thatcher and Weber represent competitive districts based in Salem and the North Coast, respectively. Two Democratic senators up for reelection, Jeff Golden of Ashland and Deb Patterson of Salem, also represent competitive areas.
State Rep. Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, plans to run for the seat Bonham is vacating and Rep. Jami Cate, R-Lebanon, plans to run for Hayden’s seat. Former GOP Rep. Tracy Cramer announced a campaign for Thatcher’s seat.
Oregon House
All 60 seats in the Oregon House are up for election. Democrats hold a 37-23 majority after Rep. Cyrus Javadi, elected to represent Tillamook as a Republican, switched parties.
Rep. Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone, plans to run for the Clackamas County Commission instead of reelection. Helfrich and Cate running for the Senate opens up two other House races. Rep. John Lively, D-Springfield, plans to retire and Springfield City Councilor Kori Radley is running for his seat.
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The list includes current Labor Commissioner Christina Stephenson, as well as two current state senators and six current state representatives seeking reelection.
Sens. James Manning Jr., D-Eugene, and Deb Patterson, D-Salem, filed to run for reelection. Angela Plowhead, a former vice chair of the Oregon Republican Party who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022, also filed to run for the Salem-based 10th Senate District Patterson represents.
State Rep. Jami Cate, R-Lebanon, filed to run for the 6th Senate District that Sen. Cedric Hayden, R-Fall Creek, must vacate because Hayden ran afoul of a voter-approved constitutional amendment that bars lawmakers with 10 or more absences from running for reelection. Hayden was one of 10 Republicans who participated in a six-week quorum-denying walkout in 2023 over bills on transgender health care, guns and abortion.
Clatsop County Commissioner Courtney Bangs and retired aerospace engineer Frank Mansfield both filed to run for the 16th Senate District on the North Coast, now represented by Rep. Suzanne Weber, a Tillamook Republican barred from running. Weber previously endorsed Bangs as her successor.
Current Reps. Tom Andersen, D-Salem; Cyrus Javadi, D-Tillamook; Kevin Mannix, R-Salem; Virgle Osborne, R-Roseburg; E. Werner Reschke, R-Malin, and Sue Rieke Smith, D-King City, all filed for reelection. Javadi, who was elected as a Republican, switched parties last week.
Nick Walden Poublon, a Democrat who narrowly lost the Gorge-based 52nd House District last year, is trying again. Charles Gallia, a retired health policy adviser who lost the 2022 Democratic primary in the competitive 40th House District to Rep. Annessa Hartman, D-Gladstone, filed to run after Hartman announced she won’t seek reelection. And Springfield City Councilor Kori Rodley filed to replace retiring Rep. John Lively as the Democratic representative in the 7th House District.
Incumbents have until March 3, 2026, to file for office and other candidates have until March 10.
Last updated: 5:46 pm
Springfield City Councilor Kori Rodley hopes to replace longtime Rep. John Lively, who will retire after more than a decade in the state House.
Rodley, like former Springfield Mayor Lively, is a Democrat with experience at the city level. She told the Capital Chronicle she’s excited about the opportunity to represent her city in the Legislature — the 7th House District contains the entire city of Springfield, without its population of close to 62,000.
“I think that I have a really solid understanding of where Springfield’s been and where we’re trying to go, and how I can help support that,” she said.
Along with serving on the city council, Rodley, 58, works in a management role at Lane County Developmental Disabilities Services. As a lesbian, she was the first out LGBTQ+ person on the Lane City Council.
Rodley said her main focus is on livability issues because Springfield residents are concerned about their ability to buy groceries, buy a home and take care of their children.
“People want to make sure they have access to health care,” she said. “They want to make sure that there is child care to support them so that they can go to work. And I think that in the future conversations in the Legislature, particularly because of what’s going on on the federal level, we’re going to really need some voices there that are keeping the everyday needs of just working folks at the table.”
She counts early endorsements from Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, state Rep. Lisa Fragala, D-Eugene, and Lane County Commissioners Laurie Trieger and Heather Buch.
Nonaffiliated voters outnumber both major parties in the 7th District, with more than 20,100 nonaffiliated voters to the 15,700 Democrats and 11,450 Republicans. It was fairly competitive in 2022, when Lively won with 51.7% of the vote, but he easily defeated Republican businessman Cory Burket in 2024.
Nick Walden Poublon, a Democrat who narrowly lost a competitive state House district based in the Columbia River Gorge in 2024, said he’s confident 2026 will be better.
Walden Poublon, 45, challenged then-House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich in 2024, losing the 52nd House District that stretches from Gresham the The Dalles by just less than 4 points. Helfrich plans to run for the state Senate, and Walden Poublon, who filed for office on Thursday, is more confident about his chances with an open seat and after another year of preparation.
“I can say with absolute surety that I didn’t look people in the face and tell them that I heard their concerns, I heard their needs, and then come as close to winning as I did, and then not come back again and give it another try, because I really committed to the community and to the district,” Walden Poublon said.
Walden Poublon doesn’t have prior elected experience, but he sits on the board of Health Care for All Oregon and is the chair of the state Democratic Party’s health care caucus. He also started working as a substitute teacher, and he spoke to the Capital Chronicle Thursday afternoon after wrapping up a day teaching fourth graders.
Along with education, his priorities include health care and housing. After surviving a brain tumor diagnosed during his first week of graduate school, Walden Poublon has personal experience as a patient that he said would be especially helpful to legislative committees working on health policy.
“As someone who has had an insurance denial, knows what it’s like to owe thousands of dollars in medical debt and come back from it. I think that voice needs to be heard at the table,” he said.
The 52nd House District has nearly 16,000 registered Democrats and just more than 13,200 Republicans, but the nearly 19,400 nonaffiliated voters help make it one of the most competitive in the state.
Christina Stephenson, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, filed to run for a second term on Thursday.
Stephenson, who worked as an employment attorney before her 2022 election to lead the labor bureau, said her focus is on making sure Oregonians are treated with fairness.
“BOLI is the agency that makes sure Oregon jobs are good jobs — where people are paid what they’re owed and work free from discrimination,” Stephenson said. “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, and I know there’s more work to do. That’s why I’m running for re-election.”
Her tenure as labor commissioner includes securing a 30% bump to the often-overlooked bureau’s budget in the most recent legislative session, money she plans to use to tackle a backlog of thousands of wage theft cases and other workplace complaints. Before the cash infusion, the department in fall 2024 announced plans to limit wage theft investigations to cases involving employees who make less than $52,710 annually.
Stephenson also led the bureau’s expansion of registered apprenticeship opportunities. The bureau’s stringent approach to determining when developers need to pay union wages on affordable housing projects under her leadership sparked controversy at the Capitol, with Republican lawmakers saying it prevented needed housing from being built.
Labor commissioner is a nonpartisan position. All Oregon voters, regardless of party, will be able to vote for commissioner on the May ballot, and a candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote can be elected outright. If no candidates receive a majority, the top two vote-getters continue to a runoff election in November.
The two state representatives who represent much of the state’s capital were among the first candidates to file for reelection on Thursday.
Reps. Tom Andersen, D-Salem, and Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, were both elected after redistricting in 2022, though Mannix has a long political history with previous stints in the Legislature.
Mannix represents much of central and north Salem, including the state Capitol, while Andersen’s district stretches south of the Capitol.
Marion County is home to some of the most competitive legislative districts in the state, and Mannix could face a rematch with former Salem City Councilor Virginia Stapleton, who he beat by just less than 4 points in 2024.
Andersen, a former city councilor who captured 54% of the vote in his two other legislative elections, has a safer district.
In a statement announcing his reelection campaign, Andersen touted his recent efforts to lower the bar to civilly commit in a mental health crisis and continued work to get the state government to compensate Salem for the drain on city services from state-owned facilities that don’t pay local property taxes.
“I have obtained meaningful, positive achievements for my constituents, and I look forward to keeping my sleeves rolled up (and my bow tie on) in future legislative sessions,” he said.
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