OR Senate · 2026
Democrats are heavily favored to win this seat
98% probability
Candidates
Last verified 2026-09-14.
Jeff Merkley
Democrat
Jeffrey Alan Merkley is an American politician who is the junior United States senator from Oregon.
David Brock Smith
Republican
David Brock Smith is an American Republican politician currently serving in the Oregon State Senate.
Held by a Democrat, seeking re-election.
Not applicable to this race: Candidate fundraising split (state filings), State campaign finance data available · Built on annual structural data, current release 2026-05-29: State mood: Domestic Stability, State mood: Isolation. See /status for current data freshness.
Why we think this
- This state's baseline partisan lean favors Democrats by about 46 points of margin before anything else is considered.
- The seat is currently held by a Democrat, who is running for re-election -- incumbents usually run ahead of their party's baseline.
- Separately, current public mood in this state specifically is shifting significantly toward Democrats, on top of the structural baseline.
- Independently, the national midterm environment is shifting every race this cycle modestly toward Democrats -- a separate, nationwide force layered on top of the state-specific factors above, not a restatement of them.
Model details -- coefficients, calibration, and the full technical decomposition.
Model sengov-2026-govmoney-v1 · computed 2026-09-16