Gary Lyndon Dye
Gary Lyndon Dye is a Libertarian Party candidate for Us Senate in Metro, Or, Oregon. The election is scheduled for November 3, 2026.
Candidate Facts
- Office sought
- Us Senate
- State
- Oregon
- Region
- Metro
- County
- Or
- Election Day
- November 3, 2026
Candidate Bio
Gary Lyndon Dye is a Portland-born chemical engineer, physicist, author, and Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate from Oregon in 2026. He is a lifelong Oregonian who grew up in Southeast Portland, attended David Douglas schools, and has spent most of his adult life in the same community.
He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University (1981), an MBA from Pepperdine University (1989), and bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Irvine (1991). He also attended law school.
His professional career spans process and measurement engineering in oil refining and natural gas: Shell (Anacortes and Los Angeles), Saudi Aramco (early-to-mid 1990s), and more than a decade as Engineer/Director of gas measurement at NW Natural. He has described his 2012 departure from the utility as the result of internal whistleblowing over billing accuracy, measurement standards, and what he viewed as political influence in the company’s leadership. He later worked in technical sales and as an engineering consultant. He has served on the David Douglas Citizen Budget Committee and held roles with the American Gas Association and Western Gas Measurement.
Dye is a landlord and homeowner in Southeast Portland. He is the father of two adult children. His family history includes a mother who was a Russian immigrant whose family experienced Soviet-era persecution and a Nazi concentration camp, and a father raised as one of ten children in Dust Bowl Oklahoma.
He has run for office multiple times, including U.S. House (Oregon District 3 in 2018 and 2024), U.S. Senate (2020), and Oregon State House. His stated priorities emphasize individual liberty, smaller government, skepticism of bureaucratic overreach, energy and utility accountability, and policy ideas such as a universal transaction tax, market-based approaches to citizenship, and systems designed around measurable individual well-being rather than institutional expansion. He is the author of the long-running philosophical work The Technical Details of Happiness, which applies engineering-style analysis to ethics, governance, and personal flourishing.
Dye identifies as agnostic and describes his politics as rooted in practical realism, anti-totalitarianism, and maximizing net individual happiness. He remains active in public discussion of Oregon and national policy.