Monica Wehby

In late April, Wehby released an advertisement that received significant attention. Called "Trust", the minute-long ad was narrated by a former patient of Wehby's, who was advised to terminate her pregnancy after an ultrasound discovered a congenital disorder with her unborn daughter's spinal cord. However, Wehby successfully performed surgery after the patient's daughter was born and she survived. The ad was widely praised and drew national attention to her campaign and to the Oregon Republican primary. As Republicans were hoping to retake control of the Senate in the 2014 elections, it was hoped that Wehby's profile as a successful surgeon and moderate Republican, combined with Merkley's middling popularity and the disastrous rollout of Cover Oregon, the state's Affordable Care Act insurance exchange website, would result in Oregon coming into play as a competitive race.

In October 2013, Wehby announced that she would seek the Republican nomination for the United States Senate seat held by first-term Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley. She said that "I want our kids to have the same opportunities that we had. I'm really concerned when I look at the way things are going we may be the first generation that can't say that their kids are going to be better off." In the primary election, she faced information technology consultant Mark Callahan, State Representative Jason Conger, attorney Tim Crawley and former Chairwoman of the Linn County Republican Party and nominee for Mayor of Albany in 2010 Jo Rae Perkins.

Wehby was also questioned about her links to businessman Andrew Miller, a major Republican donor, who had contributed heavily to efforts to support her and oppose Jason Conger. They were reported by The Oregonian in October 2013 to be dating, although Wehby characterised their relationship as "friends". When asked if there was any collaboration between her campaign and the PAC financed by Miller, Wehby said that "there is absolutely no coordination between our campaign and the group." The Democratic Party of Oregon filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, saying that it was "implausible" to think that Miller would not be privy to private information about her campaign plans and projects.

On May 16, four days before the Republican primary, Politico confirmed that Wehby had previously dated businessman and donor Andrew Miller and revealed that in April 2013, shortly after their relationship had ended, he had accused her of "stalking" him and "harassing" his employees after their relationship ended. Miller had called the police after Wehby entered his home uninvited and he considered getting a restraining order against her. Wehby stated to Politico that she was unaware Miller had filed a police report and said that "there really isn't much to it of consequence." Miller said that he regretted calling the police and was still friends with Wehby. Three days later, The Oregonian further reported that in December 2007, as Wehby was going through divorce proceedings with her then-husband Jim Grant, he accused her of "ongoing harassment" and of slapping him during a dispute. He also called the police in December 2009 after she refused to leave his house following a dispute about seeing their children. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, editor Kimberley Strassel accused liberal media outlets of highlighting otherwise trivial events in order to sway opinion away from Wehby.

On September 16, Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed revealed that Wehby's health care plan on her website, which had been published in November 2013, was almost word-for-word identical to a plan contained in a survey released by Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS in June 2013. A spokesman for Wehby said: "Dr. Wehby is too busy performing brain surgery on sick children to respond, sorry." The following day, Kaczynski noted that her website prominently featured a quote that was incorrectly attributed to former President Thomas Jefferson. He then separately revealed that the economic plan on her website, which had been published in April 2014, was nearly identical to an economic plan that had been released by Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman in March 2014 and a 2012 economic growth plan from California Republican congressional nominee Gary DeLong. It also used some lines from the same Crossroads GPS survey.

In 2007, she was elected President of the Oregon Medical Association and in 2009, she appeared in nationwide television advertisements warning about possible problems with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). In 2011, she was elected to the board of trustees of the American Medical Association.

Wehby was married to Portland physician James "Jim" Grant before divorcing in 2007. She lives with the couple's four children in Garden Home, a suburb of Portland.

In 2004, Wehby led an unsuccessful statewide campaign for Ballot Measure 35, which would have loosened Oregon's medical malpractice regulations, limiting damages recovered for patient injuries caused by a healthcare provider's negligence or recklessness. The measure failed by 896,857 votes (50.02%) to 896,054 (49.98%).

While Wehby drew the support of the Republican establishment and the National Republican Senatorial Committee and endorsements from national politicians such as Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, she received criticism from conservatives for her moderate political positions on issues such as immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage. She was also criticised by primary opponent Jason Conger for her support of the Healthy Americans Act, co-sponsored by Oregon's other U.S. Senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, and Utah Republican Bob Bennett, which Conger said was "90 percent there with Obamacare" because it contained provisions that people purchase government-approved insurance plans. Wehby responded that it was "a good plan; it was a market-based approach" and said that she never supported the entire bill and did not think uninsured people should be mandated or enticed into buying health insurance. The battle between the more centrist, establishment-supported Wehby and the more conservative, grass-roots-supported Conger was seen as symptomatic of a Republican Party that had failed to win a statewide election in Oregon since then-U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith was re-elected in 2002.

Wehby graduated from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where she served as student body president, senior class president, and chair of the medical student section of the Texas Medical Association. She completed a neurosurgery residency at UCLA Medical School in 1995 and a fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine in 1997. In 1998, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she became director of pediatric neurosurgery at Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel.

Raised a Catholic, she graduated from Father Ryan High School in 1979 and went on to earn a BS in Microbiology and a BA in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame.

Monica Wehby (/ˈ w ɛ b iː / WEB -ee; born May 7, 1962) is an American physician and politician from the state of Oregon. She was the Republican nominee for the United States Senate from Oregon in the 2014 election against Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley.