By ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle
Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle stepped into a divided Congress and big shoes in 2022, when she was elected to her first term to represent Oregon’s 4th District.
“I started working in a district that had Peter DeFazio for 36 years, and he did an amazing job,” Hoyle told the Capital Chronicle on Wednesday, referring to Oregon’s longtime congressman who’s now retired. “So I had to introduce myself to people in this district, from Curry County all the way up to Lincoln County and in between, and really let people know that we were there to work for them.”
Now, as voting results indicate she’s slated to again win her district — which spans seven counties mostly along the southwest coast from the Oregon-California border to Lincoln City — she’s focused on proving herself to voters, she said, especially those who voted against her.
On Wednesday evening, after fresh results were posted and with more than 60% of votes counted, Hoyle had a 9-point lead on her Republican challenger, lawyer Monique DeSpain. DeSpain leads in Coos, Curry and Douglas counties while Hoyle holds the majority in Benton, Lincoln and Linn counties, as well as Lane County, which has the most registered voters in the district.
Votes will continue to be counted in the race, which drew national attention, with Republicans hoping to expand their majority in the U.S. House.
DeSpain released a statement Wednesday evening, saying the race remained undecided with many more votes left to be counted.
“Every vote counts, but not all District 4 votes have been received or counted,” DeSpain said. “The turnout numbers so far show that out of the roughly 520,000 eligible registered voters, we haven’t yet heard from nearly 33% of our voters. My campaign has knocked on the doors, met with and called tens of thousands of voters this year. After personally hearing their profound concerns and frustration at not feeling heard, I feel obligated to wait for all of our voter’s voices to be heard in this election.”
Local and national Republicans have been counting on DeSpain flipping the district, control of which is still up for grabs as votes continue to be counted in races across the nation. Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s election.
DeSpain, a lawyer for Salem-area state Rep. Kevin Mannix, has never held elected office. During the campaign, opponents criticized her for taking a weak stance on abortion rights and she had a fundraising disadvantage. She raised just over $750,000 as of the end of September compared with the nearly $2.4 million Hoyle raised.
Longtime public servant
Hoyle is a longtime elected official in Oregon. She served in the state House for eight years, including as majority leader, and was labor commissioner between 2019 and 2023.
In her first two years in the U.S. House, despite being in the Democratic minority, Hoyle said she championed bipartisan bills and brought to her district millions of dollars in federal funds for wildfire prevention and emergency communications. She said she also worked to increase firefighter pay and boost investments in housing and health care.
Hoyle said she would continue to prioritize securing wildfire and infrastructure funding for Oregon. She said the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025, founded on stripping reproductive rights, mass deportations, ending efforts to address climate change and giving the executive branch full power over the federal government, is “frightening” and that she’ll “continue to fight for the values that we have here in Oregon.”
“I’ve been on the phone with people all this morning about potential tariffs and what that’s going to do to our international trade, what that’s going to do to our economy, certainly immigration – I mean, we start deporting however many millions of people – that’s really going to affect our economy, it’s going to affect families, and it’s going to affect communities,” she said.
Despite her concerns, she said she is ready to work with colleagues from both parties and to champion her district’s concerns in the House. She currently serves on the natural resources and transportation committees..
“I’m glad the campaign’s over, because now we can just focus on doing the work that I was elected to do,” she said.
- Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.
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