McCormack is editor and publisher of Portland's Tin House magazine and books and has published other local titles like Oregon Magazine, Oregon Business and Travel Oregon.

Last week, his son Noah McCormack announced via Twitter that McCormack had bought the 102-year-old New Republic. McCormack has hired Hamilton Fish, a former publisher of The Nation and The Washington Spectator, to take over as publisher from Hughes.

Noah also announced on Twitter that he would be moving to New York to take on a new, unspecified role working under Fish at The New Republic. He will still work at The Baffler, a left-wing magazine that he became publisher of in 2015.

Hughes stated that McCormack's and Fish's "backgrounds in journalism and progressive politics" made them "uniquely qualified” to lead TNR.

The deal price has not been disclosed.

McCormack said in a statement that he intends to continue the tradition of remaining “true to [TNR’s] founding principles” as “the organ of a modernized liberalism and then-dominant Progressive Movement.”

The liberal political magazine has had a rough couple of years under Hughes’ leadership.

Hughes wanted to transition the magazine into a digitally-focused media operation but he had difficulty transforming the old and traditional publication. Hughes reportedly invested more than $20 million to transform the publication but his efforts caused many longtime writers and editors to leave in 2014.

The magazine cut the number of issues in half to 10 a year and moved its headquarters from its home of Washington D.C. to New York.

As for McCormack's political background, he was Oregon's largest Democratic party donor as well as the state's largest overall political donor in 2012, having given $1.5 million to candidates.