Decision 2026: Meet the two Republicans vying to flip Oregon’s 5th Congressional District
By Mia Maldonado, Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM, Ore. -- Republican voters in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District will choose between a longtime Republican communications professional and a local elected official in the May 19 primary.
Former legislative spokesperson Jonathan Lockwood and Deschutes County Commissioner Patti Adair are Republicans from opposite generations vying for the Republican vote. Both are seeking to flip a district that has more nonaffiliated voters than any other party, and more registered Democrats than Republicans.
Oregon’s 5th Congressional District spans from the suburbs of southeastern Portland, across parts of the Willamette Valley and stretches over the Cascade Mountains to Bend. It’s the most competitive congressional district in Oregon and was represented two years ago by a Republican, though the Cook Political Report rates it as “likely Democratic” in 2026.
The winner will face U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum or challenger Zeva Rosenbaum, who are competing in the Democratic primary.
Bynum, a Happy Valley Democrat and former state representative of eight years, won the seat in 2024 after defeating her Republican predecessor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. President Donald Trump picked Chavez-DeRemer as his labor secretary, but she resigned Monday amid an internal investigation of misusing funds and sending inappropriate messages to younger staff.
Jonathan Lockwood
Party: Republican
Age: 36
Residence: Lebanon
Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Metropolitan State University of Denver and a master’s degree in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University. Studied international law during summer programs at the University of Cambridge and Leiden University. Pursuing a juris doctorate at Santa Clara University School of Law.
Current occupation: Law school student
Prior elected experience: None
Fundraising: Lockwood has not reported any fundraising to the Federal Election Commission. Candidates are only required to report fundraising if they’ve raised or spent more than $5,000 on their campaign.
Lockwood spent 15 years in public relations and corporate communications representing conservative organizations, Republican lawmakers and campaigns in his home state of Colorado and in Oregon.
In Oregon, Lockwood worked for Senate Republicans in 2016, on the gubernatorial campaigns of Republican candidates in 2018 and served as the spokesperson for several Republican state lawmakers in 2019. In between those jobs, he obtained his master’s degree and did four fellowships with conservative think tanks, including the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Charles Koch Institute. When the pandemic hit, he went to work in public relations in the private sector.
When he’s not on the campaign trail, Lockwood is finishing up law school and is set to obtain his juris doctorate in May.
“I have an extensive political and professional career and I think that we need people in Congress that understand the nuance of policy,” Lockwood said.
Lockwood regularly criticizes Bynum on social media, calling her positions extreme and claiming she sides with terrorists because she voted against a package to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, calling it “murder money.”
He’s equally critical of Adair because in 2020 she encouraged people to stay home and save lives amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think she hides behind being a Trump delegate and taking VIP photos with Republican figures to shield her from public scrutiny of her liberal record as a county commissioner,” he said about Adair.
If elected to Congress, Lockwood said he’d prioritize reviving the timber industry and strengthening the state economy, improving education outcomes, funding domestic security programs and law enforcement and addressing affordability.
“I’m a bold, unapologetic conservative and always have been,” Lockwood said. “I was raised by rural and suburban people who instilled values in me that I’ve carried forward to today and the opportunity to represent Oregonians would be a privilege and an honor that I would take.”
In 2020, Lockwood in an opinion piece to the Denver Post endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president, criticizing Trump’s handling of the pandemic and deployment of troops to Portland to protect federal property during racial justice protests following George Floyd’s murder.
Those criticisms, he told the Capital Chronicle, were anchored in conservatism and limited government.
Patti Adair
Party: Republican
Age: 74
Residence: Sisters
Education: Graduate of Heppner High School; bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Oregon. Received her Certified Public Accountant title at Central Washington University.
Current occupation and prior elected experience: Deschutes County commissioner since 2019
Fundraising: Adair had raised nearly $272,000 as of March 31, according to her latest campaign report to the Federal Election Commission. She has $189,000 left in her campaign account.
Adair is in her second term as a Deschutes County commissioner since being elected in 2018. She has lived on a horse ranch in Sisters since moving from California in 2014. She’s been a longtime supporter of Trump, attending the Republican National Convention as an Oregon delegate for his nomination in 2016.
As commissioner, Adair said she prioritizes accountability when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.
“Oregonians have to realize that right now we are one of the very highest tax states in the nation,” she said. “That’s a state issue, but we have to have accountability in our state.”
Adair said she brings in years of experience as an accountant with expertise in conservative finances.
“I have a thing for numbers,” she said, describing how she often catches data entry errors when combing over the county’s budget.
“What I do in Deschutes County can clearly be transferred to our federal government,” she said. “The federal debt needs to be very closely monitored. We’ve got to leave something for our next generation.”
Adair said she practices what she preaches, using the example of her opting out of the state’s public employees retirement system — a decision that is saving $200,000 worth in taxpayer dollars for Deschutes County residents, she said.
Her campaign priorities include making Oregon more affordable, improving education outcomes and public safety and extending tax cuts for tips, overtime and recipients of social security benefits. She criticized insider training among Congress members and called it “so wrong” that during the latest government shutdown, Congress members were getting paid while Transportation Security Administration workers were not.
Adair grew up on a ranch in Heppner to a family that raised Pendleton beef, an upbringing that motivated her decision to run for Congress.
“We have got to turn my beautiful state around,” Adair said. “I’m a fourth-generation Oregonian. I was born here. I have a degree from the University of Oregon. I love people that will live here. Our state is so beautiful, and yet we have got to turn it around.”
