Then-Rep. Charlie Conrad of Dexter works at the Oregon Legislature on Feb. 12, 2024. Conrad, who lost a Republican primary in 2024, plans to run for the state House again as member of the Independent Party of Oregon. (Photo by Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
A former one-term Republican lawmaker who lost his reelection primary in a landslide after splitting with the party over abortion rights and transgender health care is running for the Oregon House again, this time as an Independent.
Charlie Conrad, a former police officer from rural Lane County, announced his run for Oregon’s 12th House District on Friday. The Independent Party of Oregon, a centrist minor political party with nearly 155,000 members statewide, nominated Conrad at its first 2026 convention last weekend, and he’s set to appear on the November general election ballot as the party’s pick.
Conrad represented the district, which spreads south and east from Eugene and contains small rural communities including Creswell, Cottage Grove and Lowell, from 2023-25 as a Republican. He left the party after losing the 2024 primary to current Rep. Darin Harbick, R-Rainbow.
Oregon Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that can act as a kingmaker in Republican primaries, campaigned against him after he voted with Democrats on a 2023 law intended to guarantee access to abortion and gender-affirming care, and only two Republican legislators supported him. One of those lawmakers, Rep. Cyrus Javadi of Tillamook, is now a Democrat.
Conrad told the Capital Chronicle he wanted to continue unfinished work on wildfire policy and education issues. The Holiday Farm Fire, one of several that ravaged Oregon over Labor Day weekend in 2020, burned more than 170,000 acres across the McKenzie River Valley.
“Really, my heart’s in Salem,” Conrad said. “It’s working at the state legislative level, working to represent the district, working to represent Oregonians.”
No one has been elected to the Legislature as an Independent, though both Conrad and former state Sen. Brian Boquist reregistered as Independents after being elected as Republicans. Boquist switched back to the Republican Party before his term ended to run for state treasurer. The Independent Party has also cross-nominated many candidates who won Democratic or Republican primaries.
But Conrad said he thinks he can become the state’s first elected Independent legislator. The party’s platform is truer to what he described as traditional Republican values of protecting rights and effectively using tax dollars, he said.
More than 3,000 of the district’s more than 56,000 voters are Independents, while nearly 20,000 are nonaffiliated voters, more than 17,000 are Republicans and about 15,000 are Democrats. Both Harbick and Conrad won their general elections with nearly 58% of the vote.
“There are a lot of folks that are just looking for that representation of them,” Conrad said. They don’t want somebody who’s going to represent the party.”
Harbick, who owns a motel and residential treatment home in the district, filed to run for reelection in November.
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