Oregon Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby, right, talks to supporter Marvin Hausman in Lake Oswego, Ore.Jonathan J. Cooper/The Associated Press
For a glimpse at the kind of politician who may come to define the future of the Republican Party, look to Oregon and a pediatric neurosurgeon named Monica Wehby.
If you never stepped outside Portland's city limits, you could be forgiven for thinking that Oregon is the bluest state in America. It's an irregular drumbeat of a town – a muddle of breweries, bike shops and beards – and as progressive as anywhere in the country. The last time they had the chance, seven out of 10 voters here sided with Barack Obama.
But drive outside Oregon's most populous city, into the stunning expanse of mountains, high plains and farmland that together make up the bulk of this state, and you will find that local politics takes a hard right turn. Voters in these parts of Oregon tend to be much more conservative and receptive to the Republican Party's overarching talking points: free enterprise, personal liberty, smaller government.
For the most part, across gubernatorial and congressional races, Democrats have been winning fairly regularly in Oregon, but Republicans always seem to have a shot at turning things around.
And as much of the country readies for this year's round of midterm elections, Dr. Wehby – decidedly more left-leaning than the party on many core issues – has emerged as a possible predictor of the GOP's success or failure in the coming years, not only in Oregon, but countrywide.
Dr. Wehby, 51, won the Republican nomination on Tuesday to face off against Democrat Jeff Merkley in Oregon's election for the U.S. Senate. Despite being a relative political rookie, she took the nomination handily.
Oregon went to the Democrat in the 2012 presidential election, but not by an impressive margin.
Viewed through the lens of sheer land mass, the state went big for Mitt Romney, who won most of the rural and less-populated counties that make up the entirety of Oregon's eastern half. However, in the population centres, Mr. Obama won by significant margins (including a 75-20 evisceration in Multnomah County, where Portland is located).
Still, there were signs of life for the Republicans here: three counties that went to Mr. Obama in 2008 swung to Mr. Romney in 2012. The GOP is eager to find out whether that swing is part of a larger trend that could leave the state's Democrats vulnerable this year.
Just a few weeks ago, Dr. Wehby wasn't even a safe bet to win the Republican primary, let alone stand a chance at defeating the incumbent. But her fortunes during this election cycle will be seen by many as a kind of bellwether for the wider fortunes of the GOP – a party caught in a tug-of-war between inflexible ideology and shifting demographics.
By Republican standards, Dr. Wehby is a moderate. On the big economic issues, she is firmly on the side of lower taxes and fewer regulations. "The federal government telling our state we can't use our timber resources is like telling Texans they can't drill for oil," she states in her campaign website's natural resources issues page.
Dr. Wehby has also, more recently, taken a strong stance against the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, which radically expanded health-care coverage to many of America's uninsured and previously uninsurable residents.
Her opposition may prove especially appealing to some voters in Oregon in part because of her day job as an extremely accomplished neurosurgeon, but also because the rollout of the act has been embarrassingly bad in this state. For months after it went live, the Oregon Affordable Care Act website was so riddled with technical glitches that it managed to enroll exactly zero people.
Indeed, speaking at a gala dinner celebrating international trade in Portland on Monday night, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, joked that he was just happy to be at an event that had nothing to do with websites.
But on touchy social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and (to a lesser extent) immigration, Dr. Wehby has taken a much softer approach. Although an anti-abortion Catholic, she has veered away from calling for an outright ban on abortion, and has previously responded to questions about gay rights and the legalization of gay marriage by referring to her belief that government should have a limited role in citizens' personal lives.
Ideologically, those positions put Dr. Wehby far to the left of the other Republican hopefuls she defeated this week. But in a state where the ban on same-sex marriage was tossed out by a judge the day before her victory, those positions may also help her win over some voters who would otherwise be reluctant to vote Republican.
Although none of Dr. Wehby's positions can be described as exceedingly liberal, the extent to which they prove politically tenable will go a long way toward determining whether the Republican Party can regroup and regain power on the strength of relatively moderate candidates.
Nationwide, the GOP is struggling to mend a major rift. On one end of the spectrum, the Tea Party wing has spawned a new breed of all-or-nothing hardliners hell-bent on opposing the White House at every turn – most notably, around the time of the Obamacare launch, when Texas Senator Ted Cruz launched a filibuster that eventually catalyzed a partial government shutdown and a subsequent PR nightmare for the Republican Party.