Editing Ron Wyden (section)

==== 1996 Special ====
{{Main|1996 United States Senate special election in Oregon}}

In January 1996, in a [[United States Senate special election in Oregon, 1996|special election]] to fill the Senate seat vacated by [[Bob Packwood]], Wyden defeated [[Oregon State Senate]] President [[Gordon Smith (politician)|Gordon Smith]] by just over 18,000 votes, mainly due to swamping Smith by over 89,000 votes in [[Multnomah County]]. Smith won the November 1996 Senate election to succeed the retiring [[Mark Hatfield]], and Smith and Wyden served together until Smith's defeat in 2008 by Democrat [[Jeff Merkley]].

Wyden holds the Senate seat that was once held by [[Wayne Morse]], a man whom Wyden worked for in the summer of 1968 as Morse's driver,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9499176|title=One Senator's Solution for Health Care Expansion|work=[[NPR]]|first=Julie|last=Rovner|date=April 16, 2007|access-date=September 26, 2020|archive-date=April 25, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160425001724/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9499176|url-status=dead}}</ref> and whom Wyden calls his mentor.<ref name="meet">[https://wyden.senate.gov/ron/ Meet Ron Wyden] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120412040621/http://wyden.senate.gov/ron/ |date=April 12, 2012 }} from his official U.S. Senate website.</ref>