AI-Summary – News For Tomorrow
Republican Monique DeSpain, an Air Force veteran and attorney, is challenging Democratic Rep. Val Hoyle for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District seat in 2026. DeSpain, who lost to Hoyle by nearly 8 points in 2024, cites rising homelessness, unsafe streets, and declining living standards under Hoyle’s leadership. Her priorities include lowering costs, growing the economy, fighting crime, and increasing government transparency. Hoyle, a former state representative and labor commissioner, defeated DeSpain in the previous election. Hoyle has criticized DeSpain’s stance on reproductive rights, while DeSpain has targeted Hoyle for STOCK Act violations involving late disclosures of her husband’s stock trades. Hoyle is now co-sponsoring legislation to restrict stock trading by members of Congress.
News summary provided by Gemini AI.
Republican Air Force veteran and attorney Monique DeSpain will for the second time challenge incumbent Democratic Rep. Val Hoyle for the Eugene-area 4th Congressional District seat.
DeSpain would first have to win the Republican nomination in the state primary taking place on May 19, 2026, to be on November ballots. So far, the only other Republican candidate is Jonathan Lockwood, a former legislative staffer and campaign consultant.
“I am running again because I refuse to give up on the people of this district. Oregon has endured too many tough years as Hoyle and Oregon’s political elites have delivered rampant homelessness, unsafe streets, rising prices, and declining living standards,” DeSpain said in a statement. She was not available for an interview Thursday.
DeSpain last challenged Hoyle to represent the district — which slightly favors Democrats, and spans seven counties mostly along the southwest coast from the Oregon-California border to Lincoln City — in 2024. Hoyle beat her by nearly 8 percentage points.
Hoyle is a longtime elected official who served in the Oregon House for eight years, including as majority leader, and was labor commissioner between 2019 and 2023. She was elected to Congress in 2022 following the retirement of former U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, who had represented the district in Congress for 36 years.
DeSpain’s priorities, according to her website, are to lower the cost of living in Oregon, grow the state’s economy, “fight crime” and “bring transparency and accountability to our federal government.” She has not yet outlined policies or actions she would take.
Hoyle in turn hammered DeSpain during the previous campaign for being against abortion and reproductive rights, and characterized her as being supportive of a nationwide abortion ban. DeSpain repeatedly said she would not support a nationwide abortion ban.
DeSpain in her news release Wednesday went after Hoyle for Hoyle’s recent violations of the STOCK Act, for which Hoyle paid a $200 fine. Hoyle was found to be weeks or months late disclosing 217 individual stock trades by her husband, Stephen, according to an OpenSecrets review.
Hoyle told OpenSecrets the trades weren’t reported because she didn’t know they were happening. The company her husband works for ended its employer-sponsored pension program last year, and his retirement savings transitioned into an individual retirement account run by a new financial advisor, she said, who did not consult with Hoyle or her husband before making trades.
Hoyle this year is a co-sponsor of the TRUST in Congress Act, which would stop members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from buying and selling individual stocks, and the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act of 2025. That act would ban federal lawmakers and their immediate family members from owning most defense industry stocks.
CORRECTION: Hoyle beat DeSpain by 7.8 percentage points in the 2024 election, not 10 percentage points as previously reported.
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