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 County results Hatfield: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% Lonsdale: 40–50% 50–60% | |||||||||||||||||
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The1990 Oregon United States Senate election was held on November 6, 1990, to select theU.S. Senator from the state ofOregon.Republican candidateMark Hatfield was re-elected to a fifth term, defeatingDemocratic businessmanHarry Lonsdale.
The front-runners emerged quickly: for the Republicans, Hatfield was in his fourth term and was the8th most senior U.S. Senator, having previously served asGovernor of Oregon for two terms andOregon Secretary of State. For the Democrats,Harry Lonsdale, who had founded thebiotechnology company Bend Research, announced in early 1990 that he intended to aggressively challenge Hatfield over the incumbent's ties to special interests, and his positions onabortion rights andtimber management.[1]
In the Republican primary, Hatfield received a token challenge from Randy Prince, an environmentalist and formerEugene mayoral candidate who had once protestedold-growth forest logging bytree sitting for 40 days.[2] Despite an early miscue by Hatfield in which he missed the deadline for submitting a photograph for the primary voter's guide,[2] Hatfield handily defeated Prince to move on to the general election.[3]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Mark Hatfield (incumbent) | 208,327 | 79% | |
| Republican | Randy Prince | 54,722 | 21% | |
| Total votes | 263,099 | 100.00% | ||
RepresentativeRon Wyden ofOregon's 3rd congressional district considered challenging Hatfield, but decided against it.[4] Lonsdale, who was unknown as a politician, announced his campaign in March, and came out swinging directly at Hatfield and mostly ignored his primary challengers. Lonsdale's main campaign themes were abortion rights, which Hatfield opposed; and timber management, in which Lonsdale opposed exporting timber from Oregon forests and wanted to restrict logging in old-growth forests.[1] Lonsdale also criticized Hatfield as being out-of-touch with Oregonians after so many years in the Senate. Lonsdale announced that he would refuse to take special-interest contributions in his campaign, and would finance the campaign himself with the millions he had made from Bend Research.[1] Lonsdale easily defeated his competition:Salem attorney Steve Anderson,Pleasant Hill computer programmer Neale S. Hyatt,Milwaukie retired truck driver Brooks Washburne,Eugene activist Bob Reuschlein, and Frank A. Clough, also of Eugene.[1][5][6]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Harry Lonsdale | 162,529 | 64.13% | |
| Democratic | Steve Anderson | 34,305 | 13.54% | |
| Democratic | Neale S. Hyatt | 20,684 | 8.16% | |
| Democratic | Brooks Washburne | 13,766 | 5.43% | |
| Democratic | Bob Reuschlein | 12,383 | 4.89% | |
| Democratic | Frank Clough | 8,235 | 3.25% | |
| Democratic | miscellaneous | 1,535 | 0.61% | |
| Total votes | 253,437 | 100.00% | ||
Once the primaries concluded, Hatfield, who had been first elected U.S. Senator in1966, rolled out his usual campaign honed from his decades of experience: he refused debates, never engaged his opponent directly, and focused on small, friendly campaign appearances that stressed the influence he wielded as a U.S. Senator withseniority and influence.[4]
Lonsdale's self-financed campaign made heavy use ofTV attack ads, criticizing Hatfield as being out of step with Oregonians on every issue, but primarily in terms of timber and abortion. He also made use of a nationwide anti-incumbency sentiment, and tore into Hatfield for being too closely tied toWashingtonspecial interests, and attempted to tie Hatfield to theSavings and loan crisis of the mid-1980s through his advisorGerry Frank of theMeier & Frank chain of Oregon department stores, who had ties to a Salem savings and loan.[4] By early October, polls showed the gap closing from 25 down to about 4 points in an early October poll conducted byThe Oregonian newspaper, and by the end of October, some polls showed Lonsdale in the lead.[7]
With the polls running against him and time running out, Hatfield, who had not been seriously challenged since first being elected in 1966 and had never lost an election,[8] abandoned his tactic of staying above the fray and not engaging Lonsdale directly. In the media and in television ads, he charged Lonsdale with hypocrisy in his environmental stand, alleging that Lonsdale had allowed his company to illegally dump toxic chemicals into the environment.[9] Lonsdale vigorously denied the charges, which were later shown to have violated no laws, but the tactic may have stalled Lonsdale's momentum.[10] Hatfield went on to win in all butMultnomah,Columbia,Jackson,Baker, andLincoln counties to win by more than 7 percentage points statewide.[8][11]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Mark Hatfield (incumbent) | 590,095 | 53.68% | |
| Democratic | Harry Lonsdale | 507,743 | 46.19% | |
| Write-In | Misc. | 1,417 | 0.13% | |
| Total votes | 1,099,255 | 100.00% | ||
| Republicanhold | ||||
| County | Mark Hatfield Republican | Harry Lonsdale Democratic | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | # | % | # | |
| Baker | 49.61% | 2,975 | 50.11% | 3,005 |
| Benton | 56.25% | 16,382 | 43.72% | 12,733 |
| Clackamas | 55.76% | 65,299 | 44.21% | 51,775 |
| Clatsop | 54.35% | 7,007 | 45.65% | 5,886 |
| Columbia | 49.64% | 7,620 | 49.88% | 7,658 |
| Coos | 49.88% | 11,184 | 49.64% | 11,130 |
| Crook | 55.61% | 2,930 | 44.30% | 2,334 |
| Curry | 50.49% | 4,109 | 49.00% | 3,988 |
| Deschutes | 50.39% | 14,592 | 49.56% | 14,354 |
| Douglas | 56.44% | 19,177 | 43.52% | 14,787 |
| Gilliam | 54.49% | 461 | 45.27% | 383 |
| Grant | 53.02% | 1,669 | 46.86% | 1,475 |
| Harney | 57.46% | 1,663 | 42.47% | 1,229 |
| Hood River | 56.76% | 3,395 | 43.24% | 2,586 |
| Jackson | 48.56% | 26,868 | 51.41% | 28,447 |
| Jefferson | 53.23% | 2,313 | 46.70% | 2,029 |
| Josephine | 50.82% | 12,016 | 49.14% | 11,618 |
| Klamath | 50.52% | 10,010 | 49.70% | 9,801 |
| Lake | 54.61% | 1,677 | 45.39% | 1,394 |
| Lane | 52.29% | 56,497 | 47.38% | 50,903 |
| Lincoln | 44.23% | 7,108 | 55.73% | 8,957 |
| Linn | 60.50% | 20,287 | 39.49% | 13,241 |
| Malheur | 61.37% | 4,943 | 38.49% | 3,100 |
| Marion | 60.50% | 51,242 | 39.17% | 33,172 |
| Morrow | 56.90% | 1,439 | 42.86% | 1,084 |
| Multnomah | 49.27% | 117,366 | 50.54% | 120,408 |
| Polk | 61.39% | 12,170 | 38.60% | 7,653 |
| Sherman | 58.46% | 594 | 41.34% | 420 |
| Tillamook | 51.53% | 4,892 | 48.41% | 4,596 |
| Umatilla | 57.10% | 8,926 | 42.89% | 6,704 |
| Union | 54.70% | 4,834 | 45.06% | 3,982 |
| Wallowa | 55.31% | 1,812 | 44.60% | 1,461 |
| Wasco | 56.60% | 4,978 | 43.39% | 3,816 |
| Washington | 57.05% | 68,134 | 42.93% | 51,268 |
| Wheeler | 42.77% | 340 | 38.87% | 309 |
| Yamhill | 56.57% | 13,186 | 43.14% | 10,057 |
This would be Hatfield's last term as U.S. Senator. He announced his retirement from the Senate in 1996. Despite stating that he was finished with politics following his loss to Hatfield,[8] Lonsdale sought the Democratic nomination for Oregon's other Senate seat, held by RepublicanBob Packwood in the1992 Senate election, but lost in an extremely close and bitter primary to U.S. CongressmanLes AuCoin. Lonsdale tried again for the Democratic nomination for the seat vacated by Hatfield in the1996 Senate election, but lost by a wide margin toMentor Graphics founderTom Bruggere, who in turn lost to RepublicanGordon Smith.
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