A primary election in Oregon senate district 3

Denise Krause files for State Senate.

Incumbent State Senator Jeff Golden has a primary election opponent.

Denise Krause

Last week Jeff Golden learned that Republican Brad Hicks, the former CEO of the Chamber of Greater Medford and Jackson County, filed for the office of State Senate.

Today Golden learned that Democrat Denise Krause filed as well.

Krause is a retired health care executive. She served as the director of research and education information technology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and has a doctorate degree in preventive medicine. She moved to Jackson County in 2017 after retiring to be closer to her family. 

Krause is a familiar name in local politics. She spearheaded the effort to reform the Jackson County commission with three initiative petitions. One would have made the commissioner job nonpartisan. The second would have increased the number of commissioners from three to five. The third, which would take place only if voters increased the number of commissioners, would have reduced the salary of commissioners to about $75,000 from its current level of about $150,000. The salary-cut measure passed with a large majority, but because the measure that would have increased the number of commissioners did not pass, the salary cut did not go into effect. The effort was the result of a large grass-roots effort, gathering over 10,000 signatures for each measure.

Filing data, Oregon Secretary of State

She said she thought Golden was vulnerable because he supported creation of a fire map to help homeowners identify areas of wildfire concern. He later decided the map caused more problems than benefits, and succeeded in rescinding the maps. The map creates some criticism on Facebook and other social media sites.

Jeff Golden announced this week that he hoped to serve another term as state senator. He said that Republican support in the state legislature for President Trump's agenda, including National Guard troops in Portland, cuts to food benefits, and cuts to health insurance subsidies for health insurance bought on exchanges, caused him to decide to run again. Golden is part of the Democratic majority in the Oregon state senate in a state that has been voting reliably blue for several decades. There are strong Democratic majorities in metropolitan Portland. On Tuesday, Golden said that he thought part of his job was to  represent the interests of Southern Oregon within this Democratic majority of upstate legislators. This district is the only one with a Democratic state senator in the eastern and southern part of the state.

The primary election will take place in May, 2026; the general election will take place in November, 2026.

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