Republican Barbara J. Kahl is running for Oregon's 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House. The district includes Beaverton.
Kahl, a veterinarian and small-business owner, said in a questionnaire response to Surround Sound News that she entered the race because the American dream of homeownership and fair wages is slipping away. She compared her approach to that of the late Governor Tom McCall, saying she puts "Oregonians first, political divide off the table."
Candidate information
- Party: Republican
- Office sought: U.S. House of Representatives, Oregon 1st Congressional District
- Election date: Nov. 3
- Residence: Northwest Oregon; family roots in the district stretch back more than a century
- Education: Bachelor of Science with a chemistry minor, Oregon State University; Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University
- Family: Married with two grown children and four grandchildren
- Endorsements: Oregon Right to Life; Jenny Kamprath, candidate for Washington County Commissioner chair, according to her campaign endorsements page
Experience and public service
Kahl described a career spanning business, veterinary medicine, military family service and charitable work.
She said she began working as a child doing farm labor and running a paper route, took her first retail job at 16 and was managing by 17. She volunteered as a firefighter in Hillsboro and helped train police canine officers there.
Kahl said she worked in finance and purchasing at Intel before earning her veterinary degrees at Oregon State University. She has operated her own veterinary practice and farm-based business, EquiSport Farm, since 2011, according to her campaign website.
She served as CEO of the United Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from 2010 to 2025. She also worked at the Houston SPCA as a veterinarian and interim veterinary operations manager, where she said she developed chain-of-evidence protocols she later brought to Oregon.
In 2022, the American Samoa territorial government recruited Kahl as its chief veterinarian. She said she built the territory's first animal control unit, modernized the veterinary clinic to digital records and drafted the territory's first Veterinary Practice Act regulations.
Kahl calls accountability her top theme.
She said she has testified before the Oregon Legislature on agriculture, fiscal policy, animal welfare and election integrity. Her appointed positions include U.S. Navy ship's ombudsman and public member of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Confined Animal Feeding Operation Advisory Committee.
On the issues
Government accountability: Kahl identified this as her top priority. She said she supports legislation requiring year-end financial closes on every federal account with public reports, mandatory project justification for agency funding requests and expanded federal audits of nonprofits receiving government funds. She said recovered waste should go toward paying down the national debt.
Affordability and housing: Kahl said she supports the Fix Our Forests Act, which she said would restore timber harvests and provide materials to build homes. She said over 100 Oregon mills have closed, draining resources from rural communities. On food costs, she said she would advance the Milk from Family Dairies Act to create a dairy market stabilization program with price floors tiered by farm size.
Health care: Kahl said vertical integration and private equity acquisitions have damaged medical fields, noting that hospital prices have risen as much as 32% after such acquisitions. She said she supports updating antitrust laws, revising Medicare reimbursement structures and requiring cost transparency for patients before care is given.
Energy and environment: Kahl said she supports small modular nuclear reactors as a safe, zero-carbon energy source and wants each state to evaluate whether nuclear meets its needs. She said she favors requiring data centers to pay their own energy bills so families and small businesses are not subsidizing them.
