Liveblog: Filing Day 2016

5:15 PM: Thanks for reading everyone. Going to get some dinner. I will have a more detailed post tomorrow covering everything that happened.

5:02 PM: County Comsssioner David Brock (R) has filed to run against Rep. Wayne Kreiger. Possible primary to watch.

5:01 PM: Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins just dropped the gavel. Filing deadline has passed.

4:56 PM: SOS Jeanne Atkins just gave us the offcial 5 minute warning.

4:55 PM: 5 minutes until the Secretary of State drops the gavel.

4:44 PM: We are 16 minutes from the 5 PM cutoff for filing.

4:35 PM: Confirming earlier rumors, Joe Gallegos (D) HD 30 will not seek reelection. No word on who will file instead.

4:33 PM: Wingard came and filed here in person. It's now online.

3:51 PM: Huge surprise announcement from former Republican Rep. Matt Wingard who has announced he will run for his old seat in HD 26. Wingard resigned and Davis was appointed to the seat. The Oregonian had a full story on his issues in 2012. He has announced but I can't find confirmation yet.

3:42 PM: Another big update of the boards here. Secretary of State website is still faster to update right now. The crowd has grown significantly since I got here.

3:38 PM: For a while the Secretary of State website was the most up to date but now they're doing another big update of the board.

3:17 PM: Mike McLane (R) HD 55, Bill Kennemer (R) HD 39 and John Huffman (R) HD 59 have picked up Democratic challengers lowering percentage of unopposed House Members to 25%. These are all Safe Republican seats and the challengers don't seem to be well known.

3:10 PM: HD 23 just got more interesting. Current Republican incumbent Mike Nearman is currently facing a challenge from Beth Jones in the primary. Jim Thompson, the Republican turned Independent, announced a few weeks ago he would run to reclaim his old seat as an Independent. Nearman is conservative and ran to the right of Thompson in 2014. Now a Democrat, George Neujahr, has filed as well.

Most people assumed Thompson would court moderate Rs, Independents + NAVs, and Democrats to try and defeat Nearman in a general election. However, with a Democrat on the ballot this makes Thompsons' path that much harder. This is going to be a very interesting and messy race.

3:01 PM: Tim "Dad" Knopp (R— Bend) filed today and has picked up a Democratic opponent, Greg Delgado.

2:45 PM: In the Senate it's closer to 20%. These are all of the current Senators without a challenger of any kind:

• Herman Baertschiger (R) SD 2
• Mark Hass (D) SD 14
• Ginny Burdick (D) SD 18
• Michael Dembrow (D) SD 23
• Tim Knopp (R) SD 27
• Doug Whitsett (R) SD 28

2:39 PM: In other words, 30% of State Reps. don't need to even run for re-election. Historically that percentage is very common but surprising considering how angry voters portray themselves. It speaks to the difficulty and lack of will to actually oust incumbents who are statistically more likely to win their elections.

2:30 PM: They are a number of incumbents who do not have challengers so far. Here's my current list (it's possible this list will change by the end of today). In the House:

• Dallas Heard (R) HD 2
• Duane Stark (R) HD 4
• Sal Esquivel (R) HD 6
• Phil Barhart (D) HD 11
• Nancy Nathanson (D) HD 13
• Andy Olson (R) HD 15
• Brad Witt (D) HD 31
• Jennifer Williamson (D) HD 36
• Bill Kennemer (R) HD 39
• Barbara Smith Warner (D) HD 45
• Alissa Keny Guyer (D) HD 46
• Chris Gorsek (D) HD 49
• Mike McLane (R) HD 55
• Gail Whitsett (R) HD 56
• Greg Smith (R) HD 57
• Greg Barreto (R) HD 58
• John Huffman (R) HD 59
• Cliff Bentz (R) HD 60

2:25 PM: My Oregon House and Oregon Senate Ratings have my preliminary thoughts on the races as they stand today. I may make some changes after today, but for now they stand. It's based on the data I have available and an educated guess. Take my ratings with a grain of salt.

2:19 PM: The Sergeant at Arms for the House has now officially opened the House floor to anyone. Secretary of State looks like they're ready to process filing documents.

2:07 PM: Secretary of State hasn't opened up the House Floor for filing as of yet. Waiting to see if they will soon.

1:57 PM: My liveblog doesn't automatically reload so I added a "Reload Liveblog" link to the top of the page.

1:45 PM: Shemia Fagan announced today she's not running for re-election in HD 51. Janelle Bynum immediately filed soon after. According to Saul Hubbard at the Eugene Register-Guard, she runs two McDonald's restaurants with her husband. Republicans have already recruited Happy Valley Mayor Lori DeRemer (R) to run.

1:40 PM: First I want to tackle notable filings and rumors that are popping up. Allen Alley announced yesterday that he's running for the Republican nomination for months. Bud Pierce is the most well funded of the other four Republicans in the race for the nomination. It's difficult to win a primary if you start your campaign on filing day. That doesn't mean it can't be done (I've seen it done), but it's hard, rare, and requires a lot of coordination. It's unclear if Alley is prepared enough to do pull this off and if it would hurt him if he won the nomination.

1:27 PM: Apologies in advance for picture quality. They are from my phone and I have to zoom to see much of anything. I have a better camera but the process to get them on my computer and then here on the liveblog is time consuming.

1:15 PM: I just finshed updating Election HQ with all of the current filings. Now I'm keeping an eye on the boards. The real action begins in about 45 minutes at 2 PM when I'm told the Secretary of State's office will send someone over to the House Floor who can officially receive filing forms for office. The Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins will for sure be here at 5 PM to drop the gavel and close filing.

1:04 PM: Finishing updating Election HQ with latest from Secretary of State. After that I will keep an eye on everything new and start analyzing races uncontested incumbents.

12:12 PM: Welcome everyone to my first ever filing day liveblog. I will note any major announcements made today and analyze the races as they stand today. The picture below is from the floor of the Oregon House of Representatives where Secretary of State staff has setup boards with the list of all candidates running for statewide and legislative elected office.

11:54 AM: