Powell Butte attorney Mike McLane cruised to victory in the Republican primary for the District 30 seat in the Oregon Senate, positioning him as the almost certain successor to Lynn Findley.

McLane was polling 67.45% of ballots in unofficial returns as of Tuesday, May 28, giving him a clear lead in the three-way race.

The most recent tally reported by the Oregon Elections Division showed McLane with 13,040 votes to 4,669 for Prineville rancher Douglas T. Muck and 1,558 for Greenhorn resident Robert Neuman.

In addition to practicing law, McLane serves as a colonel in the Oregon Air National Guard. He’s also a former Crook and Jefferson County Circuit Court judge, House District 55 representative, Deschutes County Circuit Court judge pro tem and law clerk of the Oregon Supreme Court and U.S. Attorney’s Office.

He graduated from Condon High School and has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from Oregon State University as well as a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School.

With no candidates filing for the Democratic primary, the GOP nominee is essentially assured of winning the general election in the heavily Republican district this November.

The District 30 seat, currently held by Lynn Findley, R-Vale, became available after Findley announced he would not run again and would step down when his term expires at the end of this year.

Findley was ineligible to run because of his participation in a walkout by 10 conservative senators in May 2023 that temporarily shut down the Senate and triggered the exclusion provision of Measure 113. That law, which Oregon voters passed in November 2022 in the wake of previous walkouts, prohibits any state senator or representative with 10 or more unexcused absences from floor sessions from running for the Legislature following their current term.

District 30 represents a huge swath of Eastern Oregon, encompassing all of Baker, Crook, Grant, Harney, Lake and Malheur counties and parts of Deschutes and Jefferson counties.