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I’ll preface this by saying I have never set foot in Oregon (all the states I’ve been to I have up on my page). I’ve studied virtually every state (and territory) in the country to be able to speak on the historical trends. Although you’re 5 years older than I am, I was politically aware and studying subjects like this since I was a little kid.

I’m not sure where you’d like me to begin with OR history, although I can just give a brief rundown. OR was quite similar to the New England states for a long time. Supremely Republican (although its very early founders were Democrats, if only because that was the pre-GOP days when the opposition was Whig). The most legendary early pol was probably Joseph Lane, who had Southern sympathies. He was the VP nominee in 1860 on the Southern Democrat ticket with Breckinridge of KY, which ended up gravely tarnishing his image, and led to the backlash against the Democrats and the rise of the GOP.

Although the Democrats were fairly competitive for the Governorship and still won the majority in the legislature from time to time up until the 1880s, from that point on, it was almost entirely GOP. With the exception of 2 Democrats, George Chamberlain, who remarkably managed to hold the Governorship and Senate seat without interruption from 1903-21, and Harry Lane (a descendant of Joseph’s), the Democrats didn’t win a single House seat from the 1880 election until the anti-GOP backlash of 1922. Not from 1880 until 1932 did they obtain a majority of the House delegation (and then lost it in ‘34).

At the time, the GOP was basically a broad-based coalition from left to right, and the Democrats (with some exceptions) was a Conservative party. When the national party took a turn to the left, some of the OR Dems did, but they were slow to turn (even some of the Dems elected then were no particular fans of FDR — Governor Charles Martin was bitterly anti-New Deal and was eventually a victim of the FDR purge of Conservatives in 1938, which only had the net effect of restoring full GOP rule again).

However, the GOP did drift leftward over time, and when it started to elect folks like Wayne Morse to the Senate, they were hardly any different than the national Democrats. Morse himself became an Independent in the early ‘50s and then made the full switch to the Democrats soon after. However, the Democrats were becoming emboldened by then and young radicals were moving the state minority party in a leftist direction. When the young Richard Neuberger upset establishment GOP incumbent Guy Cordon in 1954 by an extremely slim margin, that was the turning point towards the Dems moving towards majority status in the state. In the same election, the liberal Dem Edith Green took the Portland-based 3rd for the first time since 1936. That would be the last time the GOP would ever hold that seat again.

By 1956, it was a fiasco. Running counter to Eisenhower’s victory, the Democrats captured the Governorship with Robert Holmes over acting Governor Elmo Smith in a special election (necessitated by the death of the prior incumbent Paul Patterson, who died while campaigning for the Senate and largely expected to beat party-switching Wayne Morse in his first race as a Democrat), the first time since the DINO Charles Martin won in 1934. They also had complete control of the legislature, both US Senate seats, and they captured 2 other House seats, the 2nd and the 4th, leaving only the Portland suburbs NW 1st held by the GOP. With the 1956 election, that would be the last time the GOP has held majority control of the OR House seats to date.

But in 1958, which was an awful year for the GOP nationwide, the liberal Dem incumbent Governor was beaten by the young Secretary of State, the liberal RINO Mark Hatfield. Hatfield’s victory, however, did little for the GOP initially, but tended to have the effect of leading RINOs to believe they could sell liberalism under the “R” banner just as effectively. In 1960, Richard Neuberger died at 47 (considered the Paul Wellstone of his day) and his widow, Maurine, won the seat. We won back the 4th district, but the Dems still remained in firm control.

In 1962, Hatfield won reelection, but we lost the 4th again and the Dems still held firm control of the legislature. In 1964, again running counter to the national trend, the Republicans finally won back the House in OR for the first time in a decade (but still couldn’t budge the Senate). Hatfield opted to run against the “Widder” Neuberger for the Senate, and he upended her (although oddly, on foreign policy and Vietnam, she was to his right, as Hatfield was anti-war), becoming the first Republican to win a Senate seat since Morse’s final election as one in 1950 and Cordon’s reelection in 1948 in that line. We also won back the rural 4th district, held control of the House, and another RINO (but pro-war) Secretary of State, Tom McCall, won the open Governorship, beating the liberal Democrat Bob Straub.

Emboldened by Hatfield’s upending of Neuberger, a young Portland attorney and Hatfieldite named Bob Packwood decided to challenge the venerable 68-year old anti-war leftist Wayne Morse, and beat him in 1968. The GOP majority in the House elected 37-year old Bob Smith as Speaker (the future Congressman).

Under the RINO McCall, the GOP began to shrivel and with the 1972 election (again, running counter to the national trends), the GOP lost the House after 8 years, although Hatfield, who was becoming increasingly unpopular in the state for his absences, dodged a bullet when 2 Democrats destroyed each other in the primary, then-ex-Rep. Bob Duncan and 72-year old Wayne Morse. 18-year incumbent Edith Green of Portland, who had unusually grown so Conservative in office that she had considered switching to the GOP, opted against running — though she probably could’ve beaten Hatfield. Morse emerged the victor, but lost to Hatfield, 54-46%).

A young Conservative and Senate Minority Leader named Vic Atiyeh was horrified that the liberal RINOs were killing the party and decided that he was going to stop the liberal Sec of State Clay Myers from grinding the party to dust and beat him in the primary for Governor in 1974.

Fiasco year. Although some of those previously years had run counter to national trends, 1974 was the worst year for the state GOP in the 20th century. Atiyeh lost (but retained his legislative seat and leadership post) to the very liberal Bob Straub for Governor. Political pundits wrote Atiyeh’s political obit saying that Republicans could only win as liberals. Worse, yet, the Democrats swept every single House seat. In the NW Portland suburbs seat, a district that had been Republican since 1880, the incumbent Wendell Wyatt retired and the RINO nominee, expected to win, lost by a wide margin to liberal House Majority Leader Les AuCoin (and with that, to this day, the 1st has never gone back to the GOP). Al Ullman held the 2nd, as he had since 1956 (in a district that should’ve been GOP), and was now the powerful House Ways & Means Chairman. The DINO Edith Green retired from the Portland district, and was replaced by Bob Duncan, who had carpetbagged it from the 4th that he had represented a decade earlier. And in the 4th, the incumbent Republican who had succeeded Duncan, John Dellenback, lost to the liberal Jim Weaver (whom he had beaten handily previously). The Eugene-based 4th has, like the 1st, never returned to the GOP since.

The only “positive” for the GOP was Bob Packwood’s reelection. Packwood had expected to face a rematch with 74-year old Wayne Morse, and Morse (this time, given Watergate) was expected to probably beat him. But Morse ended up dropping dead after he won the nomination and the Dems had to scramble and give the nod to the runner-up for the Dem primary for Governor, a State Senator named Betty Roberts. Roberts couldn’t beat Packwood.

1976 resulted in no changes. But in 1978, Atiyeh beat the legendary McCall in the GOP primary and then thumped incumbent Bob Straub by 10%. Bob Smith took over from Atiyeh as Senate Minority Leader. With Congress being quite unpopular, the GOP tried to challenge the 4 Dem House incumbents, but the Dems took out Bob Duncan in Portland for not being liberal enough and replacing him with the odious and shrill Ron Wyden, but the biggest upset was when an up and coming GOPer named Denny Smith (son of ex-Gov. Elmo Smith, the Republican incumbent who lost in 1956 to Democrat Robert Holmes) knocked off Al Ullman in the 2nd, one of the most powerful men in Congress (over taxes). The first time the GOP had elected a House member in 8 years, and the first in that district since 1954. A fella named Ted Kulongoski challenged Packwood for the Senate seat, but lost by 52-44%. Unfortunately, again, the Dems still held wide majorities in the legislature of 2-to-1.

In 1982, with the gain of the 5th House seat, Denny Smith ran in that seat (south of Portland & Salem-based) and ex-House Speaker & Sen. Minority Leader Bob Smith won the open 2nd. Vic Atiyeh won a massive landslide (and the last time the GOP won the office). In 1986, when RINO ex-Sec of State Norma Paulus ran to succeed Atiyeh, she lost to the liberal (and future sleazebag) Neil Goldschmidt, the ex-Portland Mayor and Carter Transportation Secretary by a 52-48% margin.

1990 was a bizarre election. In the 5th, Denny Smith was knocked off by Democrat Mike Kopetski, dropping the House GOP members to just 1 of 5. Goldschmidt retired after a single term and Sec of State Barbara Roberts beat the RINO Attorney General Dave Frohnmeyer by 46-40%. However, the Republicans captured the House for the first time since the 1970 elections. With the advent of term limits, they would end up holding it for the next 16 straight years, losing it narrowly in 2006. The first time they had held it so long since from the 1930s through early ‘50s.

1994 should’ve seen the party recapture the Governorship, but it didn’t turn out that way. Ex-Rep. Denny Smith hoping to follow in his dad’s footsteps came up short against ex-Senate President John Kitzhaber (one of only a few Republicans who failed to win Governorships that year). However, we recaptured the 5th district, held the 2nd (albeit both with flawed candidates, Jim Bunn in the 5th and the erratic Wes Cooley in the 2nd), but to Kitzhaber’s horror, the GOP captured the State Senate for the first time since the early 1950s and would hold it for the duration of his terms, losing it after unfavorable redistricting in 2002.

We still today, of course, hold just the rural Eastern OR 2nd (which we’ve held continuously since 1980) and the Senate seat that Gordon Smith occupies hasn’t elected a Democrat since Maurine Neuberger in 1960. Excluding the Portland-based 3rd, 3 of the other seats should be competitive for us, but we’ve continually failed to capture them. From a legislative standpoint, we’ve come off an unusual dominance by the GOP in the past 2 decades that was unseen in a half-century (from the ‘50s onward, Dem dominance was the norm). The GOP still has a very good chance of reclaiming the House (it’s only 31D-29R), but the Senate is 18D-11R-1I, and the likelihood is that the GOP may only pick up one seat (and the leftist independent will return to the Dems), that of the treacherous Ben Westlund, the RINO turned Dem apostate (who is hoping to ascend to State Treasurer). Also, unfortunately, the GOP has not won any of the statewide offices recently, either (not for Governor since 1982; Sec of State since 1980; Attorney General & Treasurer since 1988; Labor Commissioner and Sup’t of Education since 1998), so the party needs to get on the ball with picking up at least 1 or 2 of those offices this year (Sec of State, Treasurer & Atty Gen all open seats), but there’s apparently only 1 declared Republican, only for Sec of State.

Well, that’s the short version of OR’s political history...