Ron Wyden for U.S. Senate

We have to hand it to Jo Rae Perkins; she's nothing if not persistent. In spite of running in a number of races over the years, including for mayor and city councilor of Albany and subsequent bids for Senate and the U.S. House, winning nothing but primaries, she persists. This time around, she's running against longtime senator Ron Wyden for the seat in the U.S. Senate. Perhaps due to her purported allegiance to the QAnon movement, even the Republican party machine in Oregon is keeping their distance from this race. Perkins holds alarmingly few endorsements of any consequence.

Courtesy Ron Wyden

Wyden has been accessible and present not just in this part of Oregon, but the rest too, committed to continuing the town hall meetings in every county—something that so many other electeds seemed to abandon when the public fervor over holding town halls started to slow down. Showing up still matters. As the chair of the Senate finance committee, he holds enormous sway in Congress. He's pro-choice, and that's a dealbreaker for anyone we send to Washington, D.C., right now. While we'd love to see someone of his stature and position be able to break through the party politicking that stymies so much work in the Senate at present, that's more of a pie-in-the-sky missive for all of Congress to sort through. Americans want action on a number of issues, and Congress needs to step up.

In this present race, however, the clear choice for U.S. Senate is Ron Wyden.