While Deschutes County has traditionally fallen politically more in line with the eastern side of Oregon than the western side, this has shifted in recent years. By January 2021, a narrow plurality of registered voters in Deschutes County were registered with the Democratic Party. In addition, Joe Biden carried the county with 52.7% of the vote in the 2020 Presidential Election (compared 44.4% of the vote for Donald Trump), marking the first time a Democratic Party candidate won the county since 1992 and the first time a Democratic Party candidate received a majority of the vote in the county since 1964.

In 2008, the Oregon House seat encompassing the city of Bend switched parties and hosted the only Democratic state legislator from a district east of the Cascades, though the Republicans retook the seat in 2010. Republicans would hold the seat for the remainder of the decade until 2020, when Democrat Jason Kropf was elected to the State House.