1990 United States Senate election in Oregon
election
The 1990 Oregon United States Senate election was held on November 6, 1990, to select the U.S. Senator from the state of Oregon. Republican candidate Mark Hatfield was re-elected to a fifth term, defeating Democratic businessman Harry Lonsdale.
Primaries
The front-runners emerged quickly: for the Republicans, Hatfield was in his fourth term and was the 8th most senior U.S. Senator, having previously served as Governor of Oregon for two terms and Oregon Secretary of State. For the Democrats, Harry Lonsdale, who had founded the biotechnology 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 on abortion rights and timber management.
Republican primary
Campaign
In the Republican primary, Hatfield received a token challenge from Randy Prince, an environmentalist and former Eugene mayoral candidate who had once protested old-growth forest logging by tree sitting for 40 days. Despite an early miscue by Hatfield in which he missed the deadline for submitting a photograph for the primary voter's guide, Hatfield handily defeated Prince to move on to the general election.
Results
Democratic primary
Campaign
Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon's 3rd congressional district considered challenging Hatfield, but decided against it. 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. Lonsdale also criticized Hatfield as being out-of-touch with Oregonians after so many years in the Senate.
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