Seasoned candidates, newcomers, long-shot contenders vie for U.S. House seat

Oregon’s 4th Congressional District primaries offer voters of both major parties a choice between experienced candidates and long-shot newcomers.

U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, the Democratic incumbent, faces two primary challengers on May 19: Melissa Bird of Corvallis and Daniel Bahlen, who ran as a Libertarian candidate in 2024.

Monique DeSpain, a Republican who ran against Hoyle in the 2024 election, is the front-runner in a two-way GOP primary against Stefan Strek, a college student and perennial candidate in Lane County.

The 4th Congressional District includes Lane, Benton, Coos, Curry and Lincoln counties, as well as the northern part of Douglas County. The district stretches from the California border to north of Lincoln City along more than 250 miles of coastline.

As of April 21, nearly one-quarter of the congressional district’s 529,312 voters are registered Republicans, and 31% are registered Democrats, state data shows. The remaining 45% of voters are unaffiliated or belong to third parties, and they will not vote until the general election in November when the winners of each party’s primary face off. 

A Republican has not held the seat since the late John Dellenback of Medford was in office from 1967 until 1975. Before Hoyle’s 2022 election, Democrat Peter DeFazio represented the district from 1987 until retiring, winning every election from 1986 to 2020. 

Hoyle won a second term in the 2024 general election with nearly 52% of the vote; DeSpain garnered 44%.

Here’s a look at what the candidates in the primaries had to say:

Democratic candidates

Val Hoyle

In an interview with Lookout Eugene-Springfield, Hoyle said Congress needs to act as a check on the executive branch and Trump administration. 

“I’m focused on making sure Democrats have control of the House the next cycle, that we win our swing seats,” she said, adding that Congress needs to act as “a balance on an executive branch that believes there should be an imperial presidency.”

Hoyle brings a mix of private sector and elected office experience to her role. She worked in retail management, manufacturing and distribution in the international bicycling industry before her election in 2010 to a state House seat representing west Eugene and Junction City. In 2018, Hoyle was elected Oregon’s nonpartisan labor commissioner.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Hoyle said, Speaker Mike Johnson is “more interested in kowtowing to the president than doing his job as speaker of the House, which is a separate and equal branch of government.” 

Essentially, the job is a mix of fighting to protect democracy and advocating for communities in the district, Hoyle said.

“We have to fight back against these things while also, day to day, making sure that communities get grants for their water, for their sewer, for port infrastructure,” Hoyle said.

Hoyle said the district has a diverse mix of people, from progressive to very conservative, who all expect the government to work effectively without needlessly intruding into their personal lives.

Hoyle said she’s also focused on tribal co-management of public lands and environmental stewardship of lands to protect against wildfires.

“We can balance protecting our old growth, protecting our species, having selective harvests of our timber and making sure that there’s less out there to burn,” Hoyle said.

Hoyle said she’s committed to supporting constituents who face challenges such as overreach of federal immigration agents such as those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Meanwhile, her office continues to work with people who need help accessing government services — the traditional work of any congressional office.

“Day to day, we still help people with getting their passports, dealing with ICE, dealing with getting their Social Security after a lot of those federal workers have been fired, dealing with their veterans benefits, dealing with the IRS,” Hoyle said. “We’re helping more and more navigate those federal agencies as there’s less and less access.”

Melissa Bird 

Bird of Corvallis has worked as a social worker and policy advocate. She said she would bring Congress the perspective of a working mother who is not beholden to corporate donations nor entrenched in the establishment.

“I decided to run because I feel like we need more fierce advocates in office who don’t take corporate donations and who are here to fight for the people,” Bird said. 

When she lived in Utah, Bird was a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood in that state. She also worked on legislation there to help homeless youth. In a red state like Utah, Bird said she worked with Republican state legislators to get bills passed.

She said that approach is necessary in today’s politically divisive atmosphere.

“The nature of my policy work is based on my ability to develop relationships with people, even when people don’t really want to agree with me on everything,” Bird said. “I think that’s really critically important right now in this political climate.”

Bird said Congress needs more working people in office — people who deeply understand the impacts that government actions have on health care, food security and education. 

Housing is another key area. Bird said she’s heard frequent concerns about the lack of affordable housing while visiting communities throughout the district. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the district talking to voters about what their needs and their issues are,” Bird said. “The number one thing that always comes up is housing. It doesn’t matter if we are in Reedsport or Brookings or Eugene or Corvallis or Newport, the biggest priority is always housing.”

Bird said her goal is to reach voters who feel disenfranchised and want someone they can connect with to work on issues. 

“They’re wanting working-class folks,” Bird said. “They’re wanting people who are living the same kinds of lives that they are to represent them.”

People who live in Republican regions can feel left out, Bird said. 

“People ignore them,” Bird said. “They feel very left out of the process. And then I think the other piece is that people have left the Democratic Party because they don’t feel like they are doing enough to fight for them.”

Daniel Bahlen 

Bahlen ran in the 4th Congressional race in 2024 as a Libertarian, garnering 5,704 votes, or 1.5% of all ballots cast.

He’s now running in the Democratic primary. He declined an interview request from Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

In a Friday, April 17, forum at the City Club of Eugene, Bahlen said he is homeless and, if elected, would advocate for increased public restrooms at transit and transportation hubs to help “travelers, homeless individuals and transgender people who face discrimination.”

At the forum, Bahlen made a variety of unusual statements for a congressional candidate, declaring he would “establish a new world order” headquartered in Israel.

His campaign filings and other public records show he has a wide geographic footprint that includes living in Arizona and Florida. In his campaign filings, Bahlen says he studied behavioral health at Arizona State University and worked in the field.

Public records show Bahlen was a licensed counselor in Arizona. In 2023, Bahlen and the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners signed off on a consent order in which he agreed that he would not practice counseling and not renew his license or seek a new license for at least five years. At that point, his license was inactive.

The order’s findings suggest his professional life deteriorated during the pandemic. 

In 2020, Bahlen’s employer put him on a performance improvement plan due to excessive absences, the order said. That year, he admitted he started using alcohol and other substances due to the isolation of the pandemic and resigned about two weeks after starting the improvement plan, the order said.

The Arizona board’s consent order said officials noticed he is “suffering from behavioral health and substance-use issues.”

Republican candidates 

Monique DeSpain 

DeSpain is the front-runner in the Republican primary. She has an organized campaign with the staff and funding necessary to move to the general election in November.

DeSpain would only lose the primary if the majority of GOP voters opted instead for Stefan Strek, who complained about the election filing fees for candidates in a recent interview with Lookout.

An attorney, DeSpain also served in the Air Force and Air National Guard as an officer. A Eugene resident since 2002, DeSpain also has lived in Singapore and in Salem, while attending law school at Willamette University.

She has worked at the law firm of Republican state Rep. Kevin Mannix. That Salem-based firm, working with Common Sense for Oregon, sued former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown in 2022 on behalf of two district attorneys and crime victims for mass commutations of offenders’ prison sentences during the COVID-19 pandemic. DeSpain helped with that case and also worked with Common Sense for Oregon as its executive director. 

In 2022, the Oregon Court of Appeals found that Brown acted within her constitutional powers in that case. 

DeSpain said she supports border security and immigration reforms.

“We need to remain vigilant with our border,” DeSpain said. “At the same time, we are a beautiful nation built on immigrants. My mother was a German immigrant. My daughter-in-law is a Chinese immigrant.”

She said she fully supports deportation of “known criminals” who illegally entered the United States and doesn’t want law-abiding immigrants stuck in slow-moving, uncertain circumstances. 

“I am not against immigration whatsoever. We’ve had a broken immigration system for over 40 years, and I wish both parties would get serious about just having a good, common-sense, workable immigration system that works,” DeSpain said.

DeSpain said she wants to pursue policies that address the rising cost of living in areas like housing, food, child care and medical care. As a working and single mother who raised two children, she said, she understands the challenges Oregonians face with rising costs.

“When I’m in Congress, I’ll be definitely advocating for policies and laws that support businesses, create opportunities for jobs, and reform our broken medical care system and just get us back to a healthy economy,” she said. 

DeSpain said she wants policies that address homelessness, but also rejects the “housing first” model and instead wants to see more programs that focus on personal responsibilities and offer measurable results. 

“Sometimes they’re just handed a bottle of water or blanket or given some food,” DeSpain said. “That’s not resolving the problem at all. And a lot of the people I talk to, they don’t have the capacity to figure out how to get to the resources that are plentiful in our community.”

DeSpain also said she wants more transparency in government and efforts to fight fraud, waste and abuse, such as with Medicaid programs.

Stefan Strek 

Stefan Strek is a college student studying for a master’s degree in business administration who has run for a variety of offices in the past decade. 

Among them: In 2016, he ran for mayor in Eugene. In 2018, he also ran in the GOP primary for the 4th Congressional District seat. In 2022, he filed to run in the GOP primary in the governor’s race. In 2024, he also ran for Eugene mayor.

Strek said that if elected, he would focus on the health care system and advocate for federal incentives for the primary care system that relies upon a subscription-based model with fixed costs.

“You connect with a doctor who essentially runs an independent practice,” Strek said. “There’s no kind of corporate suits in the back, needlessly churning appointments just to bill insurance.”

He’s worked in the past in a variety of jobs, including as a food service worker, financial aid processor and as a cashier. He said the cashier work was a rewarding experience and taught him how to consistently balance a spreadsheet.