House District 57 is the rural heartland of Oregon’s patriotic agricultural sector. Ten years ago, someone posited to me that it was ripe to become a Democratic pick-up due to demographic changes, but I only saw the proud farmers, factory workers, and dock hands become more America First at the ballot box after that. The Oregon left is nothing if not persistent, and a combination of longtime Democratic donors and anti-rural media outlets are uniting to replace the Land of Food and Shelter’s longtime champion, Greg Smith, with a new progressive-backed darling. Demographic change is not turning HD57 into a Democratic pick-up: Democrats are picking up a Republican they like.
Chris Karlin of Hood River contributed $100 to the Kansas Senate Democratic Committee in December 2025. During the 2026 legislative session, Kansas Senate Democrats opposed legislation requiring public bathrooms to be used by individuals based on their sex assigned at birth. Such laws in other states have been categorized in the media as “bathroom bills” that are portrayed as discriminatory towards individuals with gender dysphoria, or “anti-trans.” The same day the Kansas Senate passed the bill despite Democratic opposition, Karlin donated $1,000 to the campaign of Jim Doherty, running in his second election since being recalled as a Morrow County Commissioner in 2022. Since 2015, Karlin has also donated thousands of dollars to left-wing candidates and causes including the Hood River County Democrats, Secretary of State Tobias Read, future Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, State Representative Jason Kropf, and Portland Mayors Keith Wilson and Ted Wheeler.
One specifically errant judge of character to contribute to Doherty’s campaign is attorney Sonya Fischer, who donated to disgraced former Clackamas County Commissioner Melissa Fireside in 2023. Fireside was indicted by a grand jury on counts of first-degree aggravated theft and forgery after defrauding a retired grocery store employee, and after her resignation, she fled the country to destinations unknown where she remains an international fugitive from justice. Fischer has also donated thousands of dollars to a variety of progressive candidates and causes, most notably the far-left Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, personally and through her still-open PAC to run for Clackamas County Commissioner in 2022.
I have opined before that the standard unwritten rule of media outlets in Oregon is best summarized as, “rural bad, therefore rural public official bad.” I used to regularly read the Malheur Enterprise newspaper published out of Vale, and I appreciated most of their journalistic efforts. Most of them. Constant pontificating about spurious self-dealing claims against Representative Greg Smith were a real mark against the paper, which could not find a new owner after its publisher, Les Zaitz, retired. If you have worked in public service in Eastern Oregon long enough, you have worked with Rep. Smith at some point. Years ago when I served as the manager of a special district that was funded by voluntary service charges rather than property taxes, Rep. Smith’s team at the Eastern Oregon University Small Business Development Center helped me update a marketing plan that caused my agency’s revenue to boom in the space of a few years. Neither the Representative nor his team took a cut of that, and it was easy to be skeptical of the Malheur Enterprise’s intimations of corruption when Rep. Smith did so much for our community without a hint of self-dealing. At the end of the day, the editorial rule in the Malheur Enterprise appeared to be, “Rural bad, therefore rural State Representative Greg Smith bad.”
Zaitz endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, a year after a stunning Politico report on the Biden Administration’s lack of support for small farmers that caused a former Iowa Farmers Union President to lament, “Rome’s burning, guys, we’re disappearing.” In 2018, the Malheur Enterprise worked with ProPublica, a national journalism initiative partially funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to publish articles regarding individuals released by Oregon’s Psychiatric Security Review Board. In January 2019, ProPublica listed a lengthy list of “errors of fact and analysis that need to be corrected” in the articles, including inaccurate figures about recidivism, an original count of felonies “inflated by multiple mistakes,” and a statistic attributed to a study that did not include said statistic, among others. ProPublica ultimately concluded, “The errors in our stories are regrettable, particularly at a time when the accuracy and fairness of news organizations is under constant assault. ” The Malheur Enterprise closed in 2025, while Rep. Smith continues to serve his rural community, whether small farmer or successful businessman, with every waking breath.
The Times-Journal based in Condon ran an editorial in January 2026 entitled, “The Walls are closing in on Greg Smith,” that mentions the Representative’s work at the EOU SBDC as one of a few “recent trials and tribulations that have come home to roost.” This particular section is a confusing inclusion, as it starts by highlighting how an Eastern Oregon state legislator used his state legislative position, shockingly, to provide state funding for a state agency in a region where many of his constituents live and attend college classes. No word from the Times Journal on whether it was a trial and tribulation for former Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, a Democrat, to vote in 2009 for $8.5 million for Western Oregon University, a state agency where he was a salaried employee that operated in a district he represented, to construct upgrades to the college’s physical education facilities. Of course, no word is necessary. It is perfectly legal for state legislators to fund state agencies, especially agencies that serve their constituents and operate in their districts, and it is an important obligation for all state legislators. Rep. Smith was not an Eastern Oregon University employee, unlike the late Senator Peter Courtney. Of course, Senator Courtney represented Salem, the State’s capital, and his Party has long benefited from an unwritten statewide editorial rule of, “Urban good, therefore urban public official good.”
Statewide coalitions of voters from every corner of Oregon, including House District 57, are continuing to line up behind their shared vision with Rep. Smith in support of the rule of law, the Second Amendment, our natural resource economy, and the precious right to life. Organizations including the Oregon Chiefs of Police, Oregon Gun Owners, Associated Oregon Loggers, and Oregon Right to Life are all endorsing Rep. Smith this cycle because of his proven work and character in Salem and in the community. His opponent is being backed by some decidedly left-wing donors while benefiting from jaundiced press coverage in consistently anti-rural publications. Partisan donors and media organizations do not support candidates opposed to their ideology. They send money to candidates who they believe will be stalwart supporters of their own political goals once in office. They publish puff pieces about people they expect will back their special interests as public officials, and excoriate the candidates out of alignment with their favored public policies.
Three County Republican Central Committees are now on recording aligning with longtime Democratic donors and anti-rural media outlets against a stalwart conservative. Republican voters in House District 57 can obtain publicly available campaign finance disclosures and read online news articles before ballots are mailed this spring. When he returns to office for another term in 2027, Rep. Smith will be working on the same issues that he has been working on since 2001. Democratic donors will rage when Rep. Smith votes against progressive priorities, which he will be free to do because he is not taking money from the left. Anti-rural media outlets will continue leaking crocodile tears about Rep. Smith’s refusal to prioritize Portland special interests over the needs of constituents from Umatilla to Clackamas Counties, a bold business strategy that does not exactly have a history of working out in their financial interests.
There is exactly one candidate in the House District 57 race who will be able to walk into Salem next year without making compromises. One candidate who is working to strengthen Republican values in Eastern Oregon. One candidate who has no interest in reshaping Eastern Oregon’s conservative values. And one candidate who is free from progressive influences because he does not take progressive money. I am confident that once again my fellow conservatives will vote for the Honorable Representative Greg Smith of Heppner this year, because they know who truly stands with them and their values. As hard as they are trying, Democrats will not be picking up House District 57 this year.
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