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QuickTake:
The real choice facing Republicans in Lane County and Oregon is whether they want to become attractive to moderates, independents, persuadable Democrats and right-leaning unaffiliated voters, or whether they want to remain a smaller, older, angrier party whose first loyalty is to Trump.
In 2024, Donald Trump won the presidency. In Oregon, his party won nothing.
Republicans failed to take a single statewide office. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a sitting Republican incumbent in the state’s most competitive congressional district, lost to Democrat Janelle Bynum by 2½ percentage points — in a district where more than 100,000 ballots came from nonaffiliated or Independent Party voters. Democrats locked in legislative supermajorities: 36-24 in the House, 18-12 in the Senate.
Trump did not open a campaign office in Oregon or submit a voter’s pamphlet statement.
Oregon should be competitive for Republicans. The state ranked 48th in fourth grade math and 46th in fourth grade reading on the 2024 Nation’s Report Card. Nearly half of Oregon’s fourth graders read below the basic level.
More Oregonians are dying than being born — for the fourth consecutive year — and census data shows a net outflow of residents in their prime earning years.
Oregon issued only about 4,800 new multifamily housing permits in 2024, a 12-year low, against an estimated statewide shortfall of 95,000 units.
Democrats have held the governor’s office for nearly 40 years.
Those failures should give an opposition party a serious opening. But they have not, because the Republican brand in Oregon is too narrow, too nationalized and too culturally mismatched to the voters who decide elections here.
The real choice facing Republicans in Lane County is whether they want to become attractive to moderates, independents, persuadable Democrats and right-leaning unaffiliated voters — or whether they want to remain a smaller, older, angrier party whose first loyalty is to Trump.
I was once a Democrat. I worked on campaigns for Lane County commissioners and a former Eugene mayor. Then came the civic unraveling of 2020 — lockdown maximalism, moral vanity on the progressive left, a broader collapse of public reason. I registered Republican and supported Nikki Haley in the 2024 primary. She lost. Trump won. Yet, I still believed local Republicans might show better judgment.
At my first Lane County Republican precinct committee meeting, an outside speaker made a pitch for volunteers to run for local school boards. Great. Then I noticed the refrigerator magnets on every chair — QR codes for reporting local public schools to the U.S. Department of Education for teaching diversity, equity and inclusion.
I had left the Democrats in part because of federal overreach. I did not cross over so Republicans could wield the same power for their own cause. The people in that room who call the Constitution sacred apparently skipped the 10th Amendment, which reserves powers not granted to the federal government to the states.
I left and registered as unaffiliated. In Lane County, unaffiliated voters now outnumber both Democrats and Republicans in registration. Statewide, they make up about 37% of the electorate — the single largest bloc. Among Oregonians aged 18 to 40, nearly half are registered nonaffiliated. A party that cannot speak to those voters is not building a majority. It is curating a subculture.
A smarter Lane County Republican Party would grasp three things.
First, a room that is visibly older and overwhelmingly white is not a growth strategy in a state where deaths exceed births and the fastest-growing registration category is “none of the above.”
Second, local Republicans should be talking relentlessly about outcomes: why Oregon’s schools rank near the bottom nationally; why housing remains scarce despite record need; why public systems cost more and deliver less; and why four decades of one-party rule have produced so little urgency about reform.
I’ve spent the past year making that case in this publication on housing, schools, immigration and fiscal policy. The platform is on the record. The local party has not touched it.
Third, Republicans must show evidence of prudence. A November 2025 poll found 61% of Oregon voters prefer a gubernatorial candidate who will challenge Trump’s agenda; only 34% want one who will implement it. In six weeks, Republican primary voters will choose among candidates for governor — including two well-funded moderates, Christine Drazen and Chris Dudley.
The 2022 governor’s race proved a Republican can compete in this state — Drazen came within 3.6 points — but only by running on governance, not grievance. If Oregon Republicans make Trump-style politics the price of admission, the persuadable middle walks.
None of this requires Republicans to become Democrats-lite. It requires them to become electorally serious.
And they should think about the alternative. The Democratic Party in Oregon is not standing still. Its younger, more progressive factions are organized and impatient. If Lane County Republicans remain trapped in a Trump-centered identity, they will not slow that drift. They will guarantee it.
The margin voters are out here. We are unaffiliated, paying rent, watching our schools. We will show up for competence. We will not show up for Trump.
