Gordon H. Smith was born in Pendleton, Oregon, in May 1952 and grew up partly in Bethesda, Maryland, while his father served as an assistant secretary of agriculture. An Eagle Scout, he served a Latter-day Saint mission in New Zealand, studied at Brigham Young University and Southwestern Law School, and later ran the family’s Smith Frozen Foods. His mother was a Udall, a cousin of Mo and Stewart Udall, and he is a double second cousin of Mark and Tom Udall. Elected to the Oregon Senate in 1992 and its president by 1995, he lost a January 1996 special election to Ron Wyden on the strength of Multnomah County, then won Mark Hatfield’s open seat later that year, becoming the first person to run for the U.S. Senate twice in one calendar year.

In 2006 National Journal placed him at the exact ideological center of the Senate. He voted with Bill Frist 82 percent of the time and seconded Trent Lott’s nomination, yet was one of four Republicans to back the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999. He supported the 2003 partial birth abortion ban and the 2006 stem cell bill, partnered with Ted Kennedy on hate crime legislation and backed the 2004 Federal Marriage Amendment. After his son Garrett died by suicide in 2003, he championed the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, signed in 2004 with $82 million for youth suicide prevention. Jeff Merkley defeated him 49 to 46 percent in 2008, the same night his cousins Mark and Tom Udall won Senate seats.

• He voted to authorize the Iraq war in 2002, called continuing the policy possibly criminal in December 2006, and backed withdrawal resolutions in 2007.
• A 2016 leaked video of a 2009 meeting recorded him telling church leaders he “felt the Lord’s hand” in the Iraq war.
• He wrote the book Remembering Garrett about his family’s experience.
• He led the National Association of Broadcasters from 2009 to 2022, handling issues such as retransmission consent.
• He served as an Area Seventy from 2012, and in 2025 he and his wife Sharon were named directors of hosting at Temple Square.