3 Republicans vie for Senate District 6 seat after incumbent barred from running

To see how candidates answered identical questions from Lookout, click here.

Three Republican candidates are vying in the primary election for a spot on the November ballot to represent Oregon’s Senate District 6, which includes Creswell, Cottage Grove, Oakridge, the McKenzie River valley, Junction City, Coburg and the rest of eastern Lane County.

In Oregon, only a voter affiliated with the party may vote in a party’s primary. 

The Republican candidate who receives the most votes in the May 19 primary will proceed to the November general election and run against Democrat Sierrah Williams, a registered dietitian nutritionist with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

Republicans who live in the district, which also includes Linn County and a small part of southern Marion County, will choose between three candidates:

• Jami Cate, Linn County farmer and state representative for House District 11
• Nicole De Graff, Springfield School Board member
• Jack Tibbetts, Cottage Grove farmer and rancher 

The general election winner will succeed Sen. Cedric Hayden, a Republican who lives in Fall Creek. Hayden is barred from running for reelection this year because of his participation in a six-week walkout in 2023. Measure 113, passed by Oregon voters in 2022, disqualifies legislators with 10 unexcused absences from serving in the Legislature following their current term.

Senators serve four-year terms, and there are no term limits.

Hayden was elected to Senate District 6 in 2022, defeating Democrat Ashley Pelton. Before Oregon redrew its state legislative maps in 2022, Democrat Lee Beyer represented Senate District 6 from 2011 to 2023. 

Jami Cate

For Cate, running for the state Senate is about trying to help more people.

Senate District 6 comprises Oregon House districts 11 and 12. House District 11 primarily covers rural Linn County, including Lebanon, Sweet Home and Harrisburg, and a portion of southern Marion County.

“Working with those communities and letting them know that they have a resource and an ally fighting for them, that’s been my favorite part,” Cate, 39, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “And so being able to take the experience that I have and wanting to educate people and communicate, and being able to do it for more people, I think, is very worthwhile.”

Cate, who served on the Lebanon Strawberry Festival board for more than 15 years, first ran for state office — House District 17 — in 2020, besting five others in the Republican primary, then beating Democrat Paige Hook in the general election. 

After districts were redrawn, Cate ran for the House District 11 seat in 2022, beating one primary challenger before topping Democrat Mary Cooke in the general election. She was reelected in 2024, beating Ivan Maluski.

Cate, a fifth-generation farmer in Linn County, grew up north of Lebanon on property her grandfather purchased in 1930.

“It’s just a family business, and it takes a lot of time, and it’s a juggle with legislative work,” Cate said.

She graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in crop and soil science before returning to work on the grass seed farm.

Cate says she’s “always tried to be very district-first” in her approach to legislating. This session, after a constituent reached out to her about parking tickets, she sponsored a bill protecting Oregonians from liability for traffic citations for vehicles they no longer own. 

“Being able to solve problems that constituents are having, they’re not always the most newsy, like headline-catching, but that’s the kind of work that has really driven me to keep serving,” Cate said.  

As a representative, she’s most proud of Senate Bill 1520, which she was a chief sponsor of in 2024, that provides tax relief for wildfire victims.

She said the most challenging part of being a state representative is “how much the politics outweighs the actual work.”

“It was really disheartening when Oregon has so many major issues that we are facing, between being ranked some of the worst for our business-friendly culture, our schools being ranked some of the worst, being in one of the worst housing crises in the country, and yet, the overwhelming majority of bills, it felt like, were really trying to message against federal policies,” she said of the most recent session.

“It’s so easy to get caught up in just the politics of it,” Cate said. “But it’s also a way to fight for my livelihood and the things that matter to my communities. And that’s always what I’ve tried to do, is just be of service and try to make a difference where I can.”

When it comes to fighting for her livelihood as a farmer and business owner, Cate mentioned the cap-and-trade effort.

“I understand people want to have carbon neutrality on things and climate goals,” she said. “But when the technology isn’t there for me to do my job, and now I’m going to get punished because I have to run equipment that has diesel engines, that’s not fair when there isn’t an alternative.”

Cate said Oregon is tax-burdened and has a spending problem. When it comes to transportation funding, the state’s 2017 transportation funding package allocated 6% to maintenance. 

“Maintaining the roads we have needs to be a bigger priority than taking on other projects,” she said. “It becomes a priority issue more than a, ‘Oh, we need to bring in more dollars’ issue.” 

She said the state’s school funding formula is inequitable for rural districts with higher poverty and higher special education enrollment. The state’s funding formula caps reimbursement for special education at 11% of enrollment. But one of the school districts in her house district has 19% special education enrollment, Cate said. That puts those schools at “a stark disadvantage.” 

Because Democrats have a supermajority in the Legislature, Cate is familiar with reaching across the aisle to advance bills.

“Everything that a Republican does, it has to be bipartisan,” she said.

Nicole De Graff 

Before running for state office, Nicole De Graff read bills and contacted legislators with questions. 

“Sometimes you only hear, ‘Oh, this bill’s going to do this.’ And I’d be like, ‘What?’ And then I’d read it and be like, ‘Where does it say that?’ It was just somebody’s summation to get people outraged sometimes, and sometimes it was true,” De Graff, 52, told Lookout. “But I also wanted to see the nitty-gritty.”

The Springfield resident was elected to a four-year term on the Springfield School District Board of Education in 2023.

De Graff grew up in Cottage Grove and attended Willamette University and the University of Oregon before moving to Hawaii and working in real estate, where she met her husband, Jason De Graff. 

After spending seven years in Australia managing her husband’s family’s cattle ranch, the couple moved to Oregon. They have three children, ages 19, 18 and 12. 

Nicole De Graff volunteered doing grassroots planning and outreach for mutual benefit nonprofit corporation Oregonians for Medical Freedom from 2015 to 2021, serving as executive director for the last year. She then worked as a policy analyst with Oregon Moms Union, teaching parents how to contact their school boards and testify in Salem, she said. 

As a school board member, De Graff learned about state laws and requirements for schools in Oregon and how to implement those policies on a local level, such as responding to Gov. Tina Kotek’s executive order directing districts to adopt stricter student cellphone policies during the school day. 

As a legislator, she plans to take “the knowledge of how things operate in a school, because it’s like a little city.”

The Republican previously ran for the state Legislature, losing in the 2020 District 11 primary and the 2022 District 12 primary.

“That’s when I was interested in it, because I still kept thinking that a lot of the issues that I was concerned about were state-level issues,” De Graff said. 

De Graff said the state needs to evaluate its programs and would benefit from clearer, public-facing tools to audit state data. She said she would “love to create a dashboard” to track education programs and funding. 

She says the state needs to reevaluate the corporate activity tax, which applies to taxable Oregon commercial activity exceeding $1 million. Revenue is transferred to the Fund for Student Success for education spending.

“I know that when the CAT tax was implemented, the general fund went down,” De Graff said. “Everybody thought it was going to be extra money, and it wasn’t.

“I just think there needs to be a reckoning of evaluating systems and agencies.”

She said the state needs to look more at outcomes. 

“We funded the Student Success Act,” De Graff said. “What are the outcomes? We still have lower literacy rates. We still have low graduation.”

She said she knows how hard it is to make budget cuts that personally affect people, such as the midyear reductions in staff at the Springfield School District.

“It’s not like they’re just numbers,” De Graff said. “They are actual people that I would see in the school or the grocery store.”

When it comes to addressing the state budget, she said, “We do have to tighten the belt.”

“We just have to have a grown-up in the room that’s willing to make those hard decisions, even though they’re also people. They’re not just decisions,” De Graff said. 

She said she’s not afraid of being in the minority in the Legislature. 

“I think that having that attitude of, I’m here to work, and I’m here to be a grown-up about it …, and also knowing that we’re going to disagree, but you can still make progress, even if it’s small steps of progress, even while you disagree,” De Graff said.

She said her school board experience has shown her the importance of staying focused on the outcome when board members have “different roles and unique perspectives.”

De Graff said she would host town halls as a legislator, “because that’s what I was going to when I was being engaged as a citizen.” 

“I think the type of legislator I would be is, I like to be involved,” she said. 

Jack Tibbetts

Jack Tibbetts got his start in politics at age 25 as a city councilor in Santa Rosa, California. 

“What drove me to want to do this is that I feel like rural voices in Senate District 6 are really underrepresented,” Tibbetts, 36, told Lookout. “And to me, it’s to do just that.”

The Cottage Grove resident is a farmer and rancher. He grew up in Santa Rosa and received a political science degree from University of California, Berkeley. 

He was elected to the Santa Rosa City Council in 2016 and again in 2020.

“I did that for about five years and navigated through three devastating fires,” Tibbetts said. “It was very much a trial by fire in government.”

While in Santa Rosa, he worked as the executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul District Council of Sonoma County. 

He resigned from the City Council in 2021.

“I really enjoyed serving people and serving my community, but at the time, I was a Democrat, and I was getting really disenchanted with the values and the policies of the Democratic Party and the direction that I feel like they were taking the community and the country as a whole,” Tibbetts said. 

He said there were a couple of council votes that swayed him, including an ordinance to require city employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccination or be placed on unpaid leave. Tibbetts was a swing vote and the ordinance “luckily” didn’t pass, he said. 

“I said to myself, I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I can’t try to balance my growing conservative beliefs with a constituency that was largely moderate to left. And so I felt that the only honorable thing to do at that point was to resign so that they could get a representative that better represented their values.”

Not feeling at home in California anymore, Tibbetts and his wife, Ali Tibbetts, moved to Oregon, where both of their families are from. They purchased Terraglen Ranch, where they raise Angus beef cattle, and Saginaw Vineyard. The couple has two sons, ages 2 and 5. 

“I started reading the paper and tracking what was going on, started seeing taxes coming down the pike that definitely have negative impacts to my business and my employees,” Tibbetts said. “And that kind of motivation, that frustration turned into, well, I’d like to get back in the fight and try to set Oregon on a correct course.”

Tibbetts said cost of living is the biggest issue facing Oregonians right now. To address this, he said he’d “love to see property taxes get capped for people 65 and older.” 

“Obviously, that has impacts to local jurisdictions that really rely on that property tax revenue,” he said. “You got to do your due diligence, talk to city managers across the state, but I would love to see us work toward something like that.”

He also said he opposes new taxes and believes the state is headed toward a “doom cycle” where high taxes drive jobs and employers out, shrinking the tax base and prompting even more taxation. He said the Legislature should spend less time figuring out how to implement new taxes and more time reaching out to employers and retaining businesses. 

“I’m passionate about it because I decided to relocate my family back to our homeland, where we’re all from, and we’ve invested heavily here and invested in our communities, and this idea that there’s not going to be a lot of opportunity for my two sons when they turn 18, 20 really breaks my heart,” Tibbetts said. 

To address its budget, he said the state needs to cut back.

“The state of Oregon is awash in money,” Tibbetts said, adding that the state needs a third-party audit, which would allow it to assess its expenses and programs.

“And that doesn’t happen enough in government,” Tibbetts said. “There’s not enough revision of our programs and services, in my opinion, to actually identify savings for the programs we do need.”

If more money is needed, he thinks timber is the state’s greatest resource. 

“You see these taxes getting applied when we’ve heavily curtailed our ability to monetize our greatest resource in the state,” Tibbetts said. “I really think that needs to be brought back.”

Candidates questionnaires

Candidates provided answers in their own words to questions from Lookout. Our questions are in bold, followed by their responses.

Jami Cate

Party: Republican

Age: 39

Residence: Lebanon

Education: Oregon State University, Bachelor of Science, Crop and Soil Science, Summa Cum Laude

Occupation: Farmer and State Representative

Prior elected experience: Current State Representative

Family status: single, no children

Key endorsements: Senator Fred Girod, County Commissioners Roger Nyquist, Will Tucker, and Colm Willis, and more than 70 others at www.jamicate.com

Qualifications: What in your background would make you the best senator for your race? 

I am the current State Representative for half of this Senate District, giving me the experience necessary to serve our communities effectively from day one. Voters can have confidence of what they’re getting with me as I have a proven voting record for being conservative, fighting back against regulatory burden and infringement on our rights, and standing firm against new taxes. 

Priorities: What would your top three goals be if elected and how would you accomplish them?

1)      The top goal I’ve had while serving in the Legislature, is to put my district first – be it in the policy ideas I introduce, how I vote on bills, or even how I approach advocacy. There are a lot of special interests at play in Salem, and the pressures to bow to them are very apparent. But this job isn’t about representing special interests, nor myself, it’s about being a voice for the people of my district. 

2)      Another top goal I’ve focused on has been communication with my constituents and communities. Knowledge is power, and trying to meet constituents where they are with all the highlights (and lowlights) coming out of Salem helps them be ready to use their voice and engage effectively in the legislative process. I have highly prioritized communication in my office, be it through digital newsletters, traditional mail, or communicating with constituents one-on-one.

3)      A very high priority throughout the district has been pushing back against new tax attempts, and that aligns with my efforts so far in the Legislature. I’ve always aimed to be as fiscally responsible as possible, as well as a hard line against increasing the tax burden Oregonians are facing. Budgets are often overlooked in favor of more attention-grabbing policy ideas, but our budgets express priorities, and tell the real tale of what is going on in Salem.

Residents: What are the gaps and shortcomings in state services and how would you address them? 

I don’t feel a majority in this district would say there are gaps or shortcomings in state services, but that there are too many services being offered that are accomplishing far too little. Looking at something like our homeless crisis: no one wants to see people dying in the streets, but arming them with needles and enabling them to keep living in squalor isn’t compassion. The state tends to take an approach of throwing money at problems thinking it will solve the issues facing our communities, but we need to focus efforts on truly giving people a hand-up, not more hand-outs. Looking at our agency budgets, and comparing our spending to other states, it’s clear that more money isn’t the problem. Leadership in our state just doesn’t have the stomach for the tough love and accountability that are needed to get meaningful results.

Collaboration: How would you work with other legislators on a statewide basis to find solutions to common problems? Give us an example of a time you worked on a collaborative solution. 

No bill gets passed without at least 31, 16, and 1 – a majority vote in the House, Senate, and the signature of the Governor. Everything in Salem is collaborative, and relationship driven. I’ve worked hard to build relationships in Salem, especially with colleagues across the aisle as they hold the gavels, set the agenda, and decide if a bill can advance or not. Since I joined the Legislature, I’ve led discussions around addressing the school funding formula, and fixing the components that disadvantage rural schools. In doing so, I’ve built a coalition of legislators committed to this issue, who have developed a better understanding of how this complex formula fails to provide the “equity” promised to Oregonians. Most issues that truly matter aren’t solved overnight, but take years of work convincing enough members that we as a Legislature need to expend the political capital to actually fix them. 

Federal government: How have recent actions by the federal government affected your goals and priorities, if at all? 

My goals and priorities have always been rooted in the communities I represent, and I think most actions taken by the federal government recently have been supported by a majority of those citizens. The Legislature would do well to focus more on the issues impacting Oregonians that we actually control, rather than wasting time virtue-signaling against a President they don’t like. More than a dozen bills were brought in the Short Session, all doing little beyond offering a chance for Portland Democrats to pontificate against federal policies. That isn’t leadership, it’s wasting tax-payers’ money and time that could have been spent addressing our failing schools, anti-business climate, and ongoing housing crisis.

Life experience: Outside of any elected experience in your background (if any), what other experiences in life have prepared you for this role?

Before being elected to serve in the Legislature, I spent over 15 years volunteering in various non-profit organizations where I worked closely with local government, law enforcement, fire districts, and even legislators. I’ve served as a treasurer in almost every organization I’ve been with, and have a deep understanding of budgets and managing expenses. I was also a state appointed commissioner within the agriculture industry, getting to promote one of Oregon’s top agriculture commodities across the country. I’ve also run businesses for most of my life. No matter the title, I have always been a hands-on citizen who has engaged in her community, worked for efficiency and effectiveness, and tried to make the world around me a better place.

Nicole De Graff

Party: Republican 

Age: 52

Residence: Springfield 

Education: Attended Willamette University, Small Business Management III Cert TAFE NSW, 

Occupation: Marketing

Prior elected experience: School Board Director 

Family status: Married with Three kids

Qualifications: What in your background would make you the best senator for your race? 

My background has prepared me to be an effective, responsive representative for Senate District 6. I have spent years advocating for families, students and vulnerable community members while building relationships across different communities and perspectives.  I understand the real world challenges people are facing because I have worked directly for them with government systems that too often feel inaccessible.

I believe government works best when leaders are transparent, accountable and willing to listen as well as working hard. I am prepared to bring a practical  approach to Salem that focuses on problem solving instead of political division.

Priorities: What would your top three goals be if elected and how would you accomplish them?

If elected, my top three priorities would be:

1. Strengthening public education

I want to ensure schools have stable funding, strong student supports and safe learning environments.  That includes advocating for career and technical education opportunities and better support for educators and families.  The layers of bureaucracy handed down by the state us producing real fatigue at the local level and I have concerns the outcomes do not warrant many of them.

2. Addressing housing and homelessness.  Too many residents are struggling with housing costs or living without stable shelter. I would support real solutions for affordable housing, behavioral health services, addiction treatment along with diversion programs. We are not treating the root cause and public safety issues are increasing as a result.  Lets evaluate and implement coordinated local solutions that emphasize both compassion and accountability.

3) Taxpayers deserve accountability before government asks families for more money, which is why I support independent financial and performance audits to ensure public dollars are being spent effectively and transparently. And they need to be easier to access and understand for the average person.  Our state revenue is better than it seems yet folks in the middle feel squeezed. I believe schools and local governments are doing their part but the state must demonstrate responsible stewardship, clear priorities and measurable outcomes before considering new taxes or regulations. 

I would accomplish these goals by listening closely to local schools, governments and service providers and focusing on policies that produce measurable outcomes.

Jack Tibbetts

Party: Republican

Age: 36

Residence: Cottage Grove

Education: College – Bachelor’s Degree

Occupation: Farmer & Business Owner

Prior elected experience: City Council, Planning Commission (current – appointed)

Family status: Married with two boys

Key endorsements: State Representative Ed Diehl, State Representative Darin Harbick, Commissioner Ryan Ceniga, Commissioner David Loveall, Mayor Candace Solesbee

Qualifications: What in your background would make you the best senator for your race? 

I have prior government experience that I left, which I believe exemplifies a true willingness to serve people over maintaining power and influence. After five years of service, I resigned because I was becoming more and more conservative, and my constituents were predominantly left-leaning. I believe it is our job to represent our constituents, and to do that best, your values need to be in alignment. I think many politicians would have compromised on their personal morals and beliefs to maintain a seat of power. I did not. I stepped back, and focused on my family, moved my family back to Oregon to be closer to family and our roots, and I started an ag business. I have also been employed in the trades (welder), government, nonprofits, and I am now a farmer and business owner. Taken together, I believe this gives me the most wide-ranging experience in this race, with significant experience in many sectors. This has given me a unique ability to see what is good and bad about all of them. These experiences will ensure I make common sense decisions. 

Priorities: What would your top three goals be if elected and how would you accomplish them? 

1. Stop new taxes. Instead, sort through the State’s 30 billion dollar budget to identify savings for pressing needs. We need to cut what we don’t need and use that money to fund what we do need. People are struggling right now, and taxes add to their financial burden. We also need to audit our state agencies, which should be a bipartisan issue. 

2. Convert the state’s existing $780 million flash-in-the-pan affordable housing development subsidies into a revolving silent second down-payment assistance program, which will turn renters into homeowners, building equity and generational wealth for their families, as opposed to subsidizing NGO affordable housing developers. Overtime, this money will be paid back to the taxpayer, which can be used to cut taxes, or fund other needs (such as road maintenance) and prevent new taxes. 

3. Develop policies with business leaders that attract and retain employers in the state to prevent more jobs from being lost in this state. One thing we can do administratively – right away – is to make changes to the state’s Habitat Conservation Plan to allow for more streamlined and efficient timber harvesting, which has historically funded our schools and roads, but has declined significantly over the past 40 years.

Residents: What are the gaps and shortcomings in state services and how would you address them? 

The biggest gap I see in our state pertains to education. Our education system is ranked 47th in the nation with a shameful 81% graduation rate. Yes, we spend twice as much per student than our neighboring state of Idaho. We need to get back to the basics of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and career-technical education. We need to stop introducing party politics into the classroom, because we have, and I believe that is why we are seeing a large number of parents pull their children out of public school, opting instead for homeschool and online learning. This results in a significant funding loss for schools, causing them to layoff teachers and seek additional taxes from the taxpayer. It puts us in a doom cycle to continually sustain a financially failing system. Parental choice in where they send their kids to school is also something this state needs to allow, because it will show policymakers and parents how the most in-demand schools are operating, providing failing schools with examples of success. Competition is good, and our schools are perhaps the most uncompetitive systems in Oregon. It is no surprise to me that they are failing.

Collaboration: How would you work with other legislators on a statewide basis to find solutions to common problems? Give us an example of a time you worked on a collaborative solution. 

I think there are really three ways to collaborate with other legislators. The first is relationship-building and communication. We aren’t likely to want to help people we don’t know or trust, so that is step one. The second way is through coercion. Namely, holding up a piece of legislation someone wants in order to pass your own. The third is finding opportunity in a crisis when an event so significant captivates and compels us all to see things differently and try something new. For example, when I was 25 years old, I was the Vice-mayor of the City of Santa Rosa. A devastating wildfire ripped through the city and consumed 6,200 structures (most of which were people’s homes). From this, we had the opportunity to completely focus on revamping our zoning and building codes (a pre-fire policy priority of mine) to make recovery and reconstruction more expedited. We accomplished this in spades, which led to us being able to apply these changes to our entire city. It was a beautiful act in deregulation. However, it required careful cross collaboration with environmentalists, builders, developers, and pro-business groups, but we did it. 

Federal government: How have recent actions by the federal government affected your goals and priorities, if at all? 

They have not negatively affected my goals. As a Republican, they have helped, and are leading to better outcomes, in my opinion. One such example is homelessness. I once served as the Executive Director of St. Vincent de Paul, and I have seen firsthand how certain government policies, such as the legalization of drugs, the state-mandated requirement of low-barrier housing and shelter, and stripping cities of their ability to move homeless people from public spaces, have increased homelessness, addiction, and decreased our ability to effectively give people a hand up. When it comes to homelessness, I support the Trump Administrations action to cap low-barrier housing and shelter stays at two years, not because I am callous, but because as someone who once worked in that field, I know all too well that behind every person in taxpayer-funded housing or shelter who is not taking steps to get a job and be productive are thousands of people behind him, literally left out in the cold, waiting for that same opportunity. 

Life experience: Outside of any elected experience in your background (if any), what other experiences in life have prepared you for this role?

One thing I can point to that has been perhaps the best experience, biggest motivator, and caused the biggest changes in my thinking and my personal political beliefs was having children. When I was younger, I was a Democrat. As I aged, I became increasingly conservative. I lived through certain events (e.g. COVID-19), I became a business owner and became responsible for paying employees and paying taxes, I began attending church. All of these things made me into the conservative that I am today. But the biggest change that was a tectonic shift in my life was having kids. It made me protective. It made me approach life and change with caution – an inherently conservative ideal. Kids give us the best experience there is. You become responsible for feeding and sheltering someone else. You become responsible for their protection, and enforcing the rules. You are also expected to provide them with opportunity. In a way, being a parent, running your own household, is like running a very small government. Of course it is much, much smaller, but the principles and the values translate to governing.