Portland, OR
This was a priority race for the NRSC, and I was the first NRSC staffer to hit the ground and set up shop in Portland. Gordon Smith, State Senate President, was an articulate, attractive, kind family man getting his ass kicked by Democratic Rep. Ron Wyden and our DSCC counterparts. We had to stop the bleeding.
We retooled, returned fire and a squadron of DC staff swooped in to help with research, fundraising and communications management. And then Newt Gingrich and the House GOP become culpable for a government shutdown. Generic support for the GOP plummeted yet we held our ground and the race according to Cook Report was a toss-up on election day.
The atmospherics were good at NRSC headquarters on election night, and we were expecting a squeaker but narrow win. The first vote by mail election in Oregon history, we at the NRSC and RNC erred in our “banked vote” calculations, and we got buried by a huge election day turnout in Democratic base areas.
This was a huge disappointment for the GOP and ended up focusing still more attention on Gingrich, the government shutdown, and soured the environment for eventual GOP presidential primary winner Bob Dole.