SUNRIVER, Ore. — Jobs and Oregon’s struggling economy were front and center Saturday as Democrats gathered for their “Summit” conference to plan for next year’s election and try to maintain big gains they scored in 2008.

During a joint appearance, U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio and David Wu were pressed by a union official who wanted to know how they proposed to create jobs in the face of record unemployment.

DeFazio said he will keep pushing for a major expansion of federal transportation spending to repair aging interstate freeways and crumbling bridges, and boost funding for urban mass transit.

“There is no recovery if we are not putting the American people back to work,” said DeFazio, who is the chairman of a powerful transportation subcommittee.

Wu said this year’s federal stimulus was needed to keep the nation’s economy from going over the edge. But more efforts are needed now by the federal and state governments to ease high unemployment, he said.

“This is all about jobs. Everything else — Afghanistan, health care, the environment — none of that gets another look unless the job situation is stabilized and made better and we get off this jobless recovery path,” he said.

Oregon Democrats had a banner election year in 2008, defeating Republican Sen. Gordon Smith — the lone GOP statewide officeholder — and winning a supermajority in the Oregon House.

The jobs question posed to DeFazio and Wu underscores the challenge Democrats face as they look for ways to keep that momentum going in 2010 while Oregon’s economy sags and the public debates Democratic-sponsored tax increases.

This past week, the state’s latest unemployment report showed continuing weakness in Oregon’s economy, with total nonfarm payrolls dropping by 10,300 jobs in September.

Republicans say that lingering problems in the economy will work against the party in charge — the Democrats — in next year’s elections.

“If the unemployment rate stays above 9 or 10 percent throughout 2010, Oregonians will be very dissatisfied. They will vote for a change,” said Tim Phillips, a Portland investment broker who’s been part of an effort to re-energize the state Republican Party.

Phillips said the $733 million tax increase package that the Democrat-led Oregon Legislature approved will also give Republicans campaign fodder next year, particularly in races for the Oregon House. Opponents of those taxes collected enough petition signatures to force a Jan. 26 referendum election on the issue.

Trent Lutz, executive director of the Democratic Party of Oregon, said the economy to some degree is a “weight around our neck” as the party in charge.

At the same time, Lutz said he thinks most Oregonians favor the Democratic approach of trying to create jobs while protecting schools, public safety and social services programs from cuts.

“There are no good ideas coming from the Republicans of how to fix anything,” Lutz said. “People want to vote for something, not against something.”

He also said the tax hikes enacted by the Legislature are targeted at corporations and wealthier individuals — those with the ability to pay — to protect schools and vital services.

Political analyst Jim Moore said the Democratic activists who traveled to central Oregon for this weekend’s conference have cause to be somewhat optimistic about their prospects of winning support from voters next year.

Democrats almost quadrupled their 2004 voter registration edge over Republicans to 240,000 in the 2008 election cycle, helping Democrats score victories in suburban areas that traditionally had been viewed as Republican-leaning or swing districts, Moore said.

“If the economy doesn’t start picking up in Oregon, the Democrats could pay a price for that. But other things are trending their way. The demographics certainly appear to favor the Democrats,” said Moore, who teaches political science at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

The weekend Summit conference will include a Sunday forum featuring Democratic gubernatorial contenders John Kitzhaber, Bill Bradbury and political newcomer Steve Shields.