Would you vote for a Republican while Trump leads the party?

Republican candidates who crossed Trump lost in the primary election.

Republican candidates who did not cross Trump lost in the general election.

In Oregon, neither gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan nor state senate candidate Brad Hicks dared to cross Trump. 

I asked readers a question: What would it take for you to vote for a Republican?

Tam Moore answered. A long life has given him the perspective of history. His answer: The right person deserves your vote.

Moore is a career journalist. He was elected a Republican Jackson County Commissioner in 1974, the Watergate landslide year, when voters rejected public corruption and trusted journalists.

Young Tam Moore: early 1970s

Guest Post by Tam Moore

Contributors to this blog are often prompted to act by a nudge from Peter. He nudged me back in December 2025 with the question “What would it take for me to support a Republican candidate in Oregon?”

For perspective, when the question was asked, unbeknownst to us and the general public, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had already – as disclosed this year in court filings – ordered Operation Metro Surge. The mobilization of some 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents turned out by early 2026 to be a sweeping crackdown in Minneapolis-St. Paul which generated fear among immigrant communities. Resulting news reports generated widespread national public controversy. Federal agents killed two U.S. citizens and a detainee died in custody. 

Political fallout from that operation, followed by a string of Trump-related impacts on our system of government, our international alliances and our national economy culminated in last week’s mid-term elections. Trump made it a referendum on his stewardship of the American Dream.

Republicans in national, state and local elections felt the impact, losing race after race, many in states and locales the President carried handily when elected to his second term just two years ago.

Readers of this blog know the 2026 answer to Peter’s question. Given this year’s revelations about the Trump stewardship, Peter – and millions of other voters – couldn’t support candidates associated with the Republican party.

That said, it’s timely to take a wider look at the question.
I’ve been a registered Republican ever since I became eligible to vote in 1956. As a young journalist I covered my first statewide and national elections two years before I could vote. It was a time when splitting the ticket – voting for candidates you thought would do the best job, regardless of party affiliation – was practiced by many including my parents who came of age during World War I, watched the pro-business national administrations of the 1920s, suffered during the Great Depression and finally began their family as FDR’s New Deal took hold in a traumatized country.

So before I give my answer to Peter’s year-old question, my prediction for the political future: We are in the midst of restructuring U.S. political parties. Trump, as some of us predicted when he won his first term, made a shambles of the GOP of Eisenhower and Reagan. Democrats, with the rise of Mamdani, AOC and Abdul El-Sayed, also have a restructuring in progress. The result is political structural change, perhaps as dramatic as the disappearance of the Whigs and emergence of the Republicans who swept Abraham Lincoln into the White House just five weeks before shooting started in the American Civil War.

That said, there’s a cookbook answer to Peter’s question for cross-party support of candidates in Oregon statewide elections. The late Dennis Richardson provides a case study. A lawyer and city councilman in Central Point, he was elected to the Legislature as a Republican. Richardson had a reputation among his legislative peers for integrity and hard work. Now Gov. Tina Kotek, then Speaker of the House, described Richardson as “a man of integrity and a dedicated public servant.” Republican colleagues talked of his honesty and civility. He was serious about policy, not a partisan.
Richardson was the GOP candidate for governor in 2014. He lost, but like many statewide candidates, Richardson came out of that election with a network of supporters. Richardson’s campaign raised concerns about Gov. John Kitzhaber’s ethics. Then early in 2015 Kitzhaber resigned as ethics investigations unfolded.
Known from the 2014 campaign as a watchdog, Richardson filed for Secretary of State and won election in 2016. Richardson’s coalition crossed party lines capitalizing on statewide visibility and a strong rural base. Government audits are part of the Secretary of State’s portfolio.

So the answer is distinguished legislative service, a reputation for honesty and hard work, a network of supporters across a state that leans heavily Democratic in urban areas, heavily Republican in rural areas. And it doesn’t hurt to have a scandal and a bit of political chaos in the opposition’s camp.

Richardson, by the way, could have built his strategy on the political career of Vic Atiyeh, Oregon’s last Republican governor (1979-1987) who won in 1978, combining long legislative experience, a strong showing in losing the 1974 election to Bob Straub, and an electorate ready for change. The statewide economic challenges of 1978 found fertile ground for an Atiyeh campaign touting fiscal discipline and economic development. Vic got 55 percent of the vote in the rematch with Straub.

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