2014 Oregon Senate - Wehby vs. Merkley

10/7/14 -- Wehby just can’t seem to make any headway. With mail-in voting starting soon, it’s hard to see what her path to victory is.

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Oregon had two Republican senators well into the 1990s. Both were anachronisms of sorts, drawn from the Progressive Republican tradition that used to dominate the state’s politics. One, Mark Hatfield, was a pacifistic, pro-life moderate, whose political career spanned four decades in Oregon. The other was Bob Packwood, one of the leading pro-choice legislators in Congress, and one of two Republican senators to vote against Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

When Packwood was brought down by a slew of allegations that he had sexually harassed several women, Congressman Ron Wyden faced off against businessman Gordon Smith in a special election to replace him. Wyden won narrowly; Smith later joined Wyden in the Senate when Hatfield retired. Smith was brought down by the 2008 anti-Republican tide, losing to Democrat Jeff Merkley by a surprisingly narrow margin.

Merkley has cut a relatively low profile in the Senate, and for much of this cycle was considered fairly safe. But President Obama’s deteriorating standing nationally has bled into this state, and while Merkley isn’t a top-tier Republican opportunity, the GOP believes it has a chance in the state with physician Monica Wehby. Wehby has been dogged by stories surrounding her legal battles, but she’s also cut some of the better advertisements of the cycle. Obama’s standing can’t improve much more if Republicans are to make this competitive, but for now, it remains a possibility.