Courtney Bangs, left, and Sen. Suzanne Weber smile at the Warrenton Fourth of July Parade on July 4, 2025 // Campaign photo

For many Clatsop County voters, the next state Senate race is still a distant thought — but for Courtney Bangs, it’s top of mind. Over the weekend, the Clatsop County commissioner officially launched her campaign for Senate District 16, announcing plans to seek the Republican nomination in the May 2026 primary. 

If elected, she would replace Sen. Suzanne Weber, a Tillamook Republican who was barred from running for reelection in 2026 after participating in a 2023 Republican walkout in an effort to stall bills on abortion, gun control and gender-affirming care. 

Bangs has served on the County Board of Commissioners since 2020, when she defeated incumbent Kathleen Sullivan in the race to represent District 4, which includes Knappa, Svensen, Westport and other eastern portions of the county. A few years ago, she recalls being approached to run for District 16, which encompasses Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook counties and portions of Multnomah and Yamhill counties. At that point, she declined.

“It wasn’t the right time for me. It wasn’t the right time for my children. It was just kind of an age and stage situation in our family’s life,” Bangs said.

But now, after many long conversations with Weber and Weber’s chief of staff, Bangs said she’s ready to take the leap — and she has the senator’s endorsement. 

“Courtney Bangs is exactly the kind of leader we need in the Oregon Senate,” Weber said in a campaign press release. “Her experience as a county commissioner, her dedication to our rural communities, and her proven track record of common sense governance make her the clear and only choice for Senate District 16 in the Republican primary and November election of next year. No one is a fiercer advocate for the people she works to protect than Commissioner Bangs. I cannot wait to see how she shakes things up in Salem.”

Priorities

Bangs, who works as an academic director and teacher at Encore Academy in Warrenton, has more than 25 years of experience in education and has lived in the area for 17 years. She said her lived experience in rural communities plays a key role in the positions she takes on state-level issues.

“I’ve lived rural a majority of my life, and have come to see the inequities that are attached to that in regards to the education that my children have access to, the healthcare that my children have access to, or that my older adult family members have access to,” Bangs said. 

She believes that experience is one of the most valuable tools a legislator can bring to the table. 

“You can have all kinds of books and education,” Bangs said, “but if you haven’t had lived experience in the topic of discussion, you may not be able to fight as hard as this community needs for us to fight.”

As a county commissioner, Bangs has focused on issues like increasing rural broadband access. She’s also made childcare a priority through her involvement with the Clatsop Child Care Retention and Expansion Program, which provides grants to childcare providers in the county. Those grants have helped lift Clatsop County from its designation as a childcare desert for preschoolers, but the county has yet to shake that classification for infants and toddlers. 

If elected, Bangs said she hopes to maintain a strong focus on K-12 education and childcare in the Legislature, and potentially look for ways to expand access to pediatric mental health resources. She’s specifically expressed a desire to follow Weber’s footsteps in fighting for parental rights in education. 

She also wants to take Weber’s lead in supporting the natural resource industry.

Bangs has been a vocal opponent of the state’s habitat conservation plan. The plan, which seeks to set aside roughly 640,000 acres of state forests for habitat conservation zones to protect threatened and endangered species, was narrowly passed by the Board of Forestry last year. According to 2023 modeling estimates, Clatsop County stands to be the most financially impacted county in the state.

Bangs said she anticipates the plan being approved by federal agencies. However, she hopes to see the state support counties, schools and local taxing districts most affected by declining timber revenues as it moves forward — something she’s pushed for in commissioner liaison positions on the state’s Council of Forest Trust Land Counties and Forest Trust Land Advisory Committee. 

“Being so close to the conversation and seeing the financial losses that have begun to occur, and will continue to occur, just makes me a stronger advocate for state level support,” Bangs said. “I feel like our communities have given a giant environmental commitment for the entire state, and I feel like the state needs to turn around and then support us for that commitment.”

As she rolls out her campaign, Bangs said her hope is to continue the work she’s started as a commissioner — but on a larger scale.

“I am extremely excited for this adventure,” she said. “I started public service five years ago, and have really enjoyed having a positive impact on my community here in the county, not only through the child care grant program, but rural recycling and having Spectrum enter our community here locally and improving our Wi Fi and internet connectivity. I just would love to have an even greater positive impact.”