Val Hoyle
Val Hoyle, a Democrat who has represented Oregon's 4th congressional district since 2023 after serving as Oregon's labor commissioner, seeks re-election in 2026 against Republican attorney Monique DeSpain.
2026 Races & Market Forecast
Live TruthIndex™ and prediction market consensus for races contested by Val Hoyle.
- Born
- February 14, 1964
- Birthplace
- Travis Air Force Base, Fairfield, California
- Education
- Presentation of Mary Academy
Merrimack High School (1983)
Emmanuel College (Bachelor of Arts in political science)
Biography & Campaign Analysis
Background
Val Hoyle was born Valerie Anne Toomey on February 14, 1964, at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California. She grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire, where her father, Dan Toomey, was a firefighter and union official who later served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
She attended Presentation of Mary Academy in Hudson, graduated from Merrimack High School in 1983, and earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Emmanuel College in Boston.
In 1999 she and her family moved to Lane County, Oregon, where she worked in sales and marketing for the bicycle manufacturers Burley Design and Cane Creek and served as a legislative aide and policy analyst for State Senator Floyd Prozanski.
Career
Val Hoyle was appointed to the Oregon House of Representatives in August 2009 to replace Chris Edwards and won full terms in 2010 and 2012.
House Democrats elected her majority leader for the 2013 session, a post she held until 2015, when she stepped down to run for Oregon secretary of state; she finished second in the 2016 Democratic primary with 33.81% of the vote.
In 2018 she won the nonpartisan race for commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries outright in May with 52% of the vote, and she held the office from 2019 to 2023.
When Democrat Peter DeFazio announced he would retire from the 4th congressional district after 18 terms, Hoyle entered the 2022 race and won the seat that November. In the House she serves on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Natural Resources.
2026 race
The 4th district includes the southern Willamette Valley and parts of the South and Central Coasts, including Eugene, Corvallis and Roseburg, and Hoyle won re-election there in 2024 with 51.7% of the vote.
In the 2026 Democratic primary she took 75.2% of the vote against social worker Melissa Bird and Apache tribal health official Daniel Bahlen.
Her Republican opponent is Monique DeSpain, an attorney who was the party's nominee for the district in 2024, and Pacific Green Party candidate Justin Filip is also on the ballot. The general election is on November 3, 2026.