Salem: who represents it, and who is running

U.S. general election (federal, state, county and city offices) votes on 2026-11-03. It elects u.S. Senator (Merkley seat); U.S. Representative OR-6; Governor; State Senate (City Hall: SD-10; also SD-11 in Salem) and all State House seats covering Salem (City Hall: HD-19); Marion and Polk county offices; City of Salem: Mayor (2-year term; Vanessa Nordyke unopposed), Councilors for Wards 2, 4 and 6 (each unopposed) and Ward 8 (Varney vs Cummings), Municipal Judge (Eleanor C. Beatty, unopposed)..

Holding office16

the sitting council

On the ballot20

9 sitting members running again

The official candidate list ↗ · What Salem is like — the /local page

Congressional district (city hall): Oregon's 6th congressional district (Salem City Hall); OR-6 is the only district found covering the city — Andrea Salinas (Democratic)

Mayor

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Julie Hoy Elected	Mayor	Independent		Marion County Elections
Vanessa Nordyke Elected acclaimed	City Councilor → Running for Mayor	Independent		Marion County Elections

City Councilor — Ward 2

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Linda Nishioka Elected acclaimed	City Councilor → Running	Independent	Ward 2	Marion County Elections

City Councilor — Ward 4

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Deanna Gwyn Elected	City Councilor	Independent	Ward 4	Marion County Elections
Dave Inbody acclaimed	City Councilor Running	Independent	Ward 4	City of Salem City Recorder

City Councilor — Ward 6

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Mai Vang Elected	City Councilor	Independent	Ward 6	Marion County Voters' Pamphlet, May 19, 2026 Primary Election (her statement, listed as "Salem City Councilor Ward 6"); Marion County Official Results May 19, 2026
Betsy Vega acclaimed	City Councilor Running	Independent	Ward 6	City of Salem City Recorder

City Councilor — Ward 8

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Micki Varney Elected	City Councilor → Running	Independent	Ward 8	Oregon Secretary of State
Chris Cummings	City Councilor Running	Independent	Ward 8	City of Salem City Recorder

City Councilor

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Irvin M Brown Elected	City Councilor	Independent	Ward 5	Marion County Elections
Paul Tigan Elected	City Councilor	Independent	Ward 1	Marion County Elections
Shane Matthews Elected	City Councilor	Independent	Ward 3	Marion County Elections

Municipal Judge

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Eleanor C. Beatty Elected acclaimed	Municipal Judge → Running	Independent	city-wide	Marion County Elections

Governor

Name	Office	Party / slate	Source
Tina Kotek Elected	Governor → Running	Democratic	Office of Oregon Governor Tina Kotek; candidacy from Marion County Elections
Brett Smith	Governor Running	Green	Oregon Secretary of State
Christine Drazan	Governor Running	Republican	Oregon Secretary of State

State Representative — HD-19

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Tom Andersen ✉️ Elected	State Representative → Running	Democratic		Oregon State Legislature
Anna Munson	State Representative Running	Republican		Oregon Secretary of State

State Senator — SD-10

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Deb Patterson ✉️ Elected	State Senator → Running	Democratic		Oregon State Legislature
Angela Plowhead	State Senator Running	Republican		Oregon Secretary of State

U.S. Senator

Name	Office	Party / slate	Source
Ron Wyden Elected	U.S. Senator	Democratic	@unitedstates congress-legislators (legislators-current.json); senate.gov not used (403 to scripts per earlier records)
Jeff Merkley Elected	U.S. Senator → Running	Democratic	@unitedstates congress-legislators; candidacy from Marion County Elections
Chris Henry	U.S. Senator Running	Progressive	Oregon Secretary of State
David Brock Smith	U.S. Senator Running	Republican	Oregon Secretary of State
Gary Lyndon Dye	U.S. Senator Running	Libertarian	Oregon Secretary of State

U.S. Representative — OR-6

Name	Office	Party / slate	Seat	Source
Andrea Salinas Elected	U.S. Representative → Running	Democratic		U.S. House of Representatives
David Russ	U.S. Representative Running	Republican		Oregon Secretary of State

Notes on this record

How the lists were read, and what could not be.

Which Salem: local/data/us-salem.json display "Salem, Oregon" — the state capital. The city lies in Marion County (most of it) and Polk County (West Salem = Ward 8).
City of Salem government: nonpartisan Mayor (2-year term) and 8 ward councilors (4-year staggered terms: odd wards elected 2024, even wards 2026), plus an elected Municipal Judge. Salem nominates in the May primary; a candidate with a majority runs alone in November. cityofsalem.net returned an Akamai "Access Denied" 403 even for robots.txt to our User-Agent, so no city page was read and no retry was made. Officeholders were therefore established from official county canvasses instead: Marion County Cumulative Results Nov 5 2024 (Mayor Hoy; Wards 1, 3, 5, 7), Nov 8 2022 (Wards 2, 4, 6) and May 17 2022 (Municipal Judge), plus the signed official May 19 2026 primary results (scanned PDF, read page by page). Two seats rest on weaker evidence and say so in their rows: Ward 6 (Mai Vang, appointed after Hoy became mayor; evidence = her own county-pamphlet statement "I've served East Salem since June 2025") and Ward 8 (Micki Varney; West Salem is in Polk County, whose results archive apps2.co.polk.or.us timed out; evidence = her pamphlet occupation "Salem City Councilor"). No council photos or emails recorded.
May 19, 2026 primary (Marion County official results, run 6/11/2026): Mayor — Vanessa Nordyke 56.99% beat Mayor Julie Hoy 42.56%; Ward 2 — Linda Nishioka 62.63% over Manny Martinez; Ward 4 — Dave Inbody 53.22% beat Councilor Deanna Gwyn; Ward 6 — Betsy Vega 50.45% beat Councilor Mai Vang 48.92%; Municipal Judge — Beatty 98.76%. So two sitting councilors (Gwyn, Vang) and the sitting mayor (Hoy) lost and are recorded as elected only. Ward 8 (Polk) still has two candidates in November. Primary losers are not recorded as candidates.
November 3, 2026 city candidates: City Recorder Amy Johnson's certification to Marion County (Aug 10, 2026): Mayor Vanessa Nordyke; Ward 2 Linda Nishioka; Ward 4 Dave Inbody; Ward 6 Betsy Vega; Ward 8 Micki Varney, Chris Cummings; Municipal Judge Eleanor C. Beatty. Matches Marion County Filed Candidates report E-023 (9/16/2026) and Polk County Ballot Content E-019 (9/17/2026). E-023 prints candidates' residential addresses and phones — none were copied. Next city election after this one: May 2028 primary (Mayor and odd wards 1, 3, 5, 7), general November 7, 2028.
Federal/state candidates: Oregon Secretary of State 2026 General Election Voters' Pamphlet, Marion edition (Book 8), "List of Candidates" ("a complete listing of federal and state candidates filed for the November 3, 2026, General Election, as prepared by the Secretary of State"), cross-checked with Marion County E-023. Oregon is a fusion state: every nominating party is kept in ballotParty; party/partyShort is the first-listed party. Write-ins skipped. ORESTAR was not used (bot challenge).
Districts: City Hall (Census geocoder, coordinates -123.041263, 44.935320) is in OR-6, SD-10 and HD-19, Marion County. A 121-point grid (~1.6 km spacing) over Salem via the Census geocoder put all 47 in-city points in OR-6; Senate districts 10 (27 points), 11 (12), 9 (8); House districts 19 (15), 20 (12), 17 (8), 22 (7), 21 (5). The grid is coarse, so slivers of other districts may be missed. Only City Hall's SD-10 and HD-19 members are recorded, per the brief; SD-11 (Stapleton vs Cramer) and HD-17/20/21/22 contests are on Salem ballots but are not recorded as people.
Sitting officials: U.S. Representative Salinas from https://www.house.gov/representatives; Senators Wyden and Merkley from the CC0 @unitedstates legislators-current.json (senate.gov not attempted; earlier records found it 403); Governor Kotek from https://www.oregon.gov/gov/pages/index.aspx; Senator Deb Patterson (SD-10) and Representative Tom Andersen (HD-19) from oregonlegislature.gov Senators/Representatives lists (party "Democratic"), all retrieved 2026-10-22/23.
standsFor (21 of 27 people) is quoted only from the person's own pamphlet statement: Oregon SOS 2026 General pamphlet Book 8 (federal/state; Book 9 Polk edition for Ward 8), Marion County Voters' Pamphlet Nov 3 2026 (Nishioka, Vega) and May 19 2026 (Hoy, Nordyke, Gwyn, Vang, Inbody — none filed a November statement or were not on the November ballot). The SOS says statements are "printed as submitted" and not fact checked; Marion says they have "not been verified for accuracy by the county". Null for Wyden, Tigan, Matthews, Brown, Beatty (no statement) and Gary Lyndon Dye (chose not to submit). Statewide/OR-6 quotes were checked word-for-word against Book 8.
Robots/terms: sos.oregon.gov and www.oregon.gov (statewide robots; /elections/Voters-Pamphlet/Documents and /gov allowed); co.marion.or.us (only /_catalogs disallowed; Clerk disclaimer read, no reuse restriction); polkcountyor.gov (ClaudeBot-named group and * group both allow /DocumentCenter and page paths; Crawl-delay 10 honoured; disclaimer read); oregonlegislature.gov, house.gov (paths used allowed); geocoding.geo.census.gov (no robots.txt, 404); unitedstates.github.io (no robots.txt). Blocked, not bypassed: cityofsalem.net (Akamai 403 incl. robots.txt); apps2.co.polk.or.us (502 timeout on robots.txt, so nothing fetched). One User-Agent throughout.
No home addresses, personal phones or personal emails recorded. Wikipedia, Ballotpedia and news were not used.

Sources

Prepared 2026-10-23. Nomination papers are never opened: they carry home addresses. After voting day a candidate list becomes a result; these rows are reconciled, not deleted.