Deschutes County Clerk Steve Dennison shows the inside of a sorting machine that reads bar codes on ballot envelopes at the Deschutes County Clerk’s Office in October in Bend. (Joe Kline/The Bulletin file)

There are still many unknowns about the 2026 race for Deschutes County Commission.

What is known is that it will not be like any election the county has ever seen.

Four of the board’s five seats will be in front of voters in November 2026. Two of those are positions added by a 2024 ballot measure expanding the county commission from three to five members. Voters will likely be deciding on a ballot measure splitting the county into districts in 2028, putting another wrinkle into political gameplans.

The unique circumstances have already generated a large and diverse pool of candidates rife with storylines.

“It’s not going to be dull,” said Deschutes County Clerk Steve Dennison, who administers the county’s elections. “Bring your popcorn.”

Candidates won’t be able to officially file for county commissioner until Sept. 11. Most haven’t started the work of campaigning, or are in the very early stages.

Commissioner elections are technically nonpartisan, but prospective candidates come with their own political background, and are sometimes endorsed by county political parties.

Republican incumbents Tony DeBone and Patti Adair told The Bulletin they haven’t decided if they will run for reelection.

The seat held by Phil Chang, the lone Democrat, is not up for reelection until 2028.

A group of Democrats has already emerged, eager to break Republican control of the commission.

One is John Heylin, the Bend bar owner riding high on the wave of support he got for launching the ballot measure to expand the commission from three to five members. Heylin gathered thousands of signatures to put the initiative in front of voters after Adair and DeBone declined to place it on the ballot themselves.

Now, Heylin hopes to take one of their seats in next year’s election.

He said he would not be running for county commissioner if his ballot measure would have failed.

But Heylin believes the win showed he connected with voters where the current commissioners were out of touch.

About 65% of voters approved of the ballot measure to expand the commission.

“For them not to pick up on that from their constituents means that they’re just missing something,” he said.

The belief that current commissioners are out of touch and have held back progress for too long was a motivating factor for many of the Democrats who have thrown their hat in the ring for 2026.

As to whether voters will agree, “The election process is where that gets figured out,” DeBone said.

Adair said she has worked hard for Deschutes County, even if it’s not seen by the public or the media.

“I hear from people who appreciate and support me every day,” Adair said.

As Deschutes County grows rapidly, it has tilted leftward on the political spectrum. Registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats in Deschutes County as recently as 2019, according to voter registration statistics. The county voted for Republican presidents in 2012 and 2016, but then for Democrats in 2020 and 2024. There are now about 48,800 registered Democrats and 44,800 Republicans in the county.

Still, the largest group of voters is nonaffiliated — they claim no party. DeBone and Adair both won reelection in 2022. Voters have backed DeBone since 2011.

Conservative candidates can’t be written off, said Rob Imhoff, a Republican who is considering running in 2026. He said there is ample opportunity to sway the unaffiliated voter with the “common sense” message.

“A lot of the extreme positions on things have created a bottleneck when it comes to actually instituting services for people,” he said.

Imhoff owns an automated shading company in Bend. He ran for county commissioner last year but was defeated by Chang in the May election. Later that year, he ran the Republican party’s opposition campaign to the board expansion.

He said voters bought into a false narrative that a five-member commission would create more transparency, but he believes it will do the opposite because state law will now allow two board members to meet without calling a public meeting.

Imhoff said the real purpose of the ballot measure was to create an easier path for a Democrat majority on the board through two vacant seats.

If that happens, “It’s going to take a significant turn towards some of the policies that I think the majority of Deschutes County residents actually don’t agree with,” he said.

Diverse experiences 

For prospective candidates, the decision about which seat to run for has trade offs.

A new seat might be less of a challenge than beating out an incumbent, should Adair and DeBone choose to defend their seats. But the new seats will serve only a two-year term before going back on the ballot in 2028, after which point terms will be four years.

Amanda Page, who was recently reelected to the Redmond School Board, said she is “seriously considering” running for county commissioner. While the two extra seats on the ballot “opened a door” for her to run, she said she plans to challenge one of the sitting commissioners in order to secure a four-year term and not have to run again in 2028.

Page, an enrolled member of the Klamath Tribes, said she wants to run because she feels the board has lacked an advocate for tribal sovereignty. Local tribes have criticized the board in recent months for decisions in a land use hearing regarding tribal treaty rights as they relate to plans for a destination resort.

Page is not the only candidate hoping to bring a unique background to the race. Redmond pastor Rick Russell usually attends county commission meetings to ask for funding or project approval as director of Mountain View Community Development, one of the fastest-growing homeless shelter and housing providers in the region.

Now he’s decided to pursue a spot on the board himself in 2026.

“We need that skillset of someone who can build collaborations to meaningfully solve the problems that we have,” he said.

His homelessness projects, he said, have gained support from both Democrats and Republicans.

“I think the community is looking for nonpartisan leadership in our community right now,” he said.

He said it’s too early to say whether he will seek an endorsement from either political party, but he knows he’ll be running for one of the newly-created seats.

Next year’s race is shaping up to have a significant presence from Redmond. John Nielsen, Redmond City Councilor and branch manager at a local credit union, said he is “seriously thinking about” running, citing the work the city of Redmond has accomplished despite the “dysfunctional nature” of a three-member county commission.

“Communities in Central Oregon really need to have a reliable partner,” in the county commission, said Nielsen, a Democrat. He said the current commission is too partisan and politically motivated.

“My personal view is that we have an opportunity for the first time in a very long time to reconfigure the commission in a way that represents everyone in Deschutes County,” he said.

Weighing uncertainties

Nielsen said he hasn’t decided which seat he would run for.

There is another layer of uncertainty hanging over that decision. The county commission is in the process of appointing a committee to draft a map of five commissioner districts across the county. The idea of districts has support from all three members of the current board, with the intent to ensure broad geographic representation across the county with five board members. But Chang disagrees on timing and nature of the process.

Adair and DeBone aim to place those districts on the ballot sometime in 2026, ensuring Republican oversight of the process. If approved by voters, candidates in the 2028 election would likely have to live in the district associated with their seat.

That means candidates elected in 2026 could become ineligible for a seat two years later. For example, if two commissioners from the same part of Redmond are elected to two different seats, they might then have to run against each other to win the newly created district seat in 2028.

Prospective candidates said there is not enough information about the location of potential districts to be a factor in strategy when picking a seat.

And some Democrats aren’t convinced the districting effort at hand will be successful.

Packed house 

There are already enough progressives in the race so at least two of them will have to run for at least one of the same seat.

“Every time I talk to someone about this, I find out another person I respect is also running,” said Amy Sabbadini, a civics educator and land use planner who lives in Bend. “It’s a little bit bonkers, but it’s also exciting.”

Sabbadini has circled politics for years. As a union leader, she helped select which political candidates to endorse. She has lobbied the Legislature for education support. She felt now was the time to enter the ring herself, although she said the decision wasn’t influenced by the fact that there are two extra seats up for grabs.

Sabbadini said she plans to run for Adair’s seat.

“I don’t think she reflects who most people of Deschutes County are.”

The county did away with partisan nominations in county elections in 2022. That means the top two vote-getters in the May primary move on to the November election, regardless of party. A candidate automatically wins the seat in May if they get more than 50% of the vote.

“There are a lot of very, very talented people” running, said Jamie Collins, who plans to run in 2026. He is a Coast Guard reserve officer and climate scientist who says his top priorities will be disaster preparedness, land use and homelessness funding.

“I had an opportunity to move the county forward at a once-in-a-generation moment,” Collins said. “We are not gonna have another chance for a long time where we have the energy and opportunity to really shift county government in a direction that prioritizes safety, sustainability, livability and equity for everyone that lives in the county.”