Sen. Jeff Merkley won a fourth term representing Oregon in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, Nov. 3, defeating Republican state Sen. David Brock Smith, the Associated Press reported.

The AP declared Merkley the winner at 11 p.m. Eastern time. The race was one of dozens across the country that determined control of the Senate.

Washington County voters turned out at a strong clip. More than 52% of eligible voters in the county had their ballots accepted by Tuesday afternoon, according to The Oregonian. That outpaced Multnomah County, where the figure stood at 48%.

Initial results

Statewide, Merkley held 57.06% with 731,076 votes and Brock Smith had 40.24% with 515,659 votes, according to the Banks Post. Chris Henry, the Progressive and Pacific Green Party nominee, drew 1.76% with 22,494 votes. Libertarian Gary Lyndon Dye received 0.87% with 11,167 votes. Those totals include results from all 36 counties.

Oregon had not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 2002, according to 270toWin, which had described Merkley as "heavily favored" heading into the election.

Who ran

Merkley was first elected to the Senate in 2008 after serving in the Oregon House of Representatives, including two years as House speaker, the Statesman Journal reported. He said his decision to run again came down to three concerns: economic pressures on families, corruption in the federal government and what he described as the erosion of the Constitution under President Donald Trump.

"The thing that really tipped me over to saying yes, hell yes, I'm going to run again was Trump shredding our Constitution," Merkley said, according to the Statesman Journal.

Brock Smith, a state senator from Port Orford, is a third-generation southwest Oregonian and former restaurant owner. He served in local government and the Oregon Legislature, first as a state representative and then as a state senator. He said he has disagreements with Trump but argued voters should evaluate his candidacy independently of their feelings about the president.

"Oregon is in trouble," Brock Smith said, according to the Statesman Journal. "I felt that this was the moment that was necessary to try to bring Oregonians another option."

Counting continues

Oregon is a vote-by-mail state. The Oregon Secretary of State's results page showed unofficial statewide voter turnout of 41.84% as of 9 p.m. on Nov. 3, with 1,300,876 ballots counted out of 3,109,081 active registered voters. Election night tallies are not final. Vote counts will continue to be updated as more ballots are processed.

County results are due to be certified by Nov. 30. The secretary of state is scheduled to certify statewide results Dec. 10, according to the Statesman Journal.

The Senate race was one of several contests on the Nov. 3 ballot affecting Washington County residents. Commissioners Nafisa Fai and Pam Treece faced off in a runoff for county commission chair after neither reached 50% in the May primary, according to the Hillsboro News Times. Results of that race were not available in the sources reviewed.