Wyden wins US Senate Dem primary

On Aug 22, 2022

This story will continue to be updated as more results come in. Because ballots could be mailed on Election Day starting this year, elections officials caution the winners may not be known for several days. Election offices expect vote counts after Tuesday to rise more than in past years due to valid ballots arriving at counting locations up to seven days after the election.

Ron Wyden won Tuesday’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary race, a contest in which he is the incumbent, but the race to decide who will be his Republican opponent in the general election has not yet been determined.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden claimed 340,138 — nearly 90% — of the 380,426 votes reported by noon Thursday. Because ballots in Oregon can be mailed on Election Day this year, election officials don’t expect final results for several days.

The Associated Press called the Democratic primary for Wyden after the first round of votes was reported Tuesday night.

Wyden, an Oregon senator since 1996 and previously representing Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, ran on his record. Primary challengers Thompson and Barlow argued Wyden misspent his years in office, respectively claiming Wyden didn’t stop problems from population growth and was too focused on elections.

The Republican primary was still too close to call Wednesday.

Joe Rae Perkins, the Republican candidate in the 2020 U.S. Senate general election against Sen. Jeff Merkley, got the second most at 85,569 — or 32.4% — of the votes in the Republican primary reported by noon Thursday, the most of the seven candidates in the race.

Darin Harbick, owner of Harbick’s Country Inn and Harbick’s Country Store in the McKenzie River Valley, got 80,459 — 30.7% — of the Republican primary votes reported noon Wednesday, the second highest vote count so far in the contest.

Here is the breakdown of the votes reported by noon Wednesday:

Democratic primary for U.S. Senate: 342,877 total votes reported

Ron Wyden: 340,138 votes, 89.4% of the total
Brent Thompson: 12,851 votes, 3.4% of the total
William Barlow III: 25,122 votes, 6.6% of the total
Write in: 2,315 votes, 0.6% of the total

Republican primary for U.S. Senate: 243,773 total votes reported

Jason Beebe: 30,815 votes, 11.7% of the total
Chris Christensen: 21,619 votes, 8.2% of the total
Robert Fleming: 5,335, 2% of the total
Darin Harbick: 80,459 votes, 30.5% of the total
Sam Palmer: 33,102 votes, 12.5% of the total
Joe Rae Perkins: 85,569 votes, 32.4% of the total
Ibra Taher: 4,895 votes, 1.9% of the total
Write in: 2,246 votes, 0.9%