History is on Gordon Smith's side

Some good news for Gordon Smith: Oregonians traditionally doesn’t vote out incumbent U.S. Senators. It’s been nearly forty years since a sitting Senator lost, and its only happened three times in state history.

That was in 1968, when Republican turned Independent turned Democrat Wayne Morse lost to Bob Packwood by 3,445 votes. Since voters began directly electing U.S. Senators in 1912, only two other incumbent Senators lost re-election bids: Republican Guy Gondon, 3,462 votes in 1954 (against Democrat Richard Neuberger), and Democrat George Chamberlain, who lost to Republican Robert Stanfield by 16,572 in 1920.

Stanfield lost his bid for a second term six years later; he was defeated in the GOP primary, and then ran as an Independent in the general election and finished third.

The record of incumbent Governors winning re-election is even better: the last incumbent to lose a general election was Democrat Robert Holmes in 1958, and the only other incumbent to lose a general was Democrat Walter Pierce in 1926.