Despite House appointment, Wingard still has tough race ahead

The sudden early retirement of state Rep. Jerry Krummel (R-Wilsonville) gave Republican House District 26 candidate Matt Wingard an edge in the November election with an appointment to Krummel's vacancy, but Wingard still faces a tough road ahead if he wants to actually serve during a legislative session.

Back in January of this year Wingard admitted to being convicted for hitting his son who was seven years old at the time.  House Minority Leader Bruce Hanna (R-Roseburg) quickly withdrew his support for Wingard and demanded the GOP start hunting for a more viable candidate.  He stated in an email to his supporters that "after seeing records and learning
more details about the incidents . . . [I] made an immediate decision to withdraw both my personal support and the caucus' support" from Wingard's candidacy.

Well, no new Republican candidate ever surfaced and Hanna certainly sang a different tune yesterday after Wingard's appointment when he stated he thinks Wingard "will provide excellent service to the people of House District 26."  So now Hanna is stuck with both Wingard as his nominee and his own comments denouncing his support for the candidate.

Wingard will face moderate Democrat and former lobbyist for the Associated General Contractors Jessica Adamson in November.  Wingard has roughly $10,000 more in the bank than Adamson heading into the fall campaign season, but when it comes to caucus support the numbers look vastly different.  Likely future House Speaker Dave Hunt and the House Democrats currently maintain a cushy $771,692 in their campaign kitty while Hanna and his gang have a mere $42,283 cash-on-hand.  This is a prime target pick-up opportunity for Democrats with a moderate candidate, a lot of cash to burn and a GOP opponent whose own leadership has previously denounced him.  

Like we said, even with his appointment, Wingard has a tough road ahead.