Oregon hasn’t had a Republican governor since the Reagan administration. Its registered-voter rolls currently boast upwards of 270,000 more Democrats than Republicans, although independents outnumber both; its state legislature is run by a bicameral Democratic supermajority, and every statewide office is currently occupied by a Democrat; and Oregonians backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump by more than 16 points in the 2020 presidential election. It is, by all measures, a deep-blue state.
But all that could change this November — no, really. Despite the state’s decisive lean left, Kate Brown, the term-limited outgoing Democratic governor, has repeatedly been rated as the least popular governor in the country. Tina Kotek, the Democratic nominee in the governor’s race — and a close ally of Brown’s during her tenure as the speaker of the Oregon House — is facing tough headwinds, above and beyond the overall national conditions. An unusually viable and well-funded Democrat-turned-independent, Betsy Johnson, is polling in the low 20s in her candidacy for governor and could peel off crucial Democratic votes. And Christine Drazan, the Republican hopeful who previously served as minority leader in the Oregon House, is as serious and competent a candidate as Oregon Republicans — who have often opted to nominate deeply flawed long shots in the past — could hope for.
Considering all this, political analysts have repeatedly tightened their ratings for the Oregon governor’s contest. In August, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics changed its assessment of the race from “Leans Democrat” to “Toss-Up.” In July, the Cook Political Report moved its rating from “Likely Democrat” to “Lean Democrat”; in September, the group downgraded again, from “Lean Democrat” to “Toss-Up.” The available polling shows Drazan and Kotek virtually tied in the low 30s, with Johnson trailing ten points or so behind.
The cavalry can’t come soon enough. As Nate Hochman wrote in a profile of Drazan back in May, “Decades of one-party rule haven’t treated the Beaver State well: The state boasts the fourth-worst homelessness problem in the country, and the eighth-worst education system. (With the fourth-worst graduation rate and teacher-to-student ratio.) According to a 2021 CNBC analysis, it’s the sixth-worst for business friendliness, and the third-worst for cost of living.” All that, of course, comes on top of Portland — Oregon’s largest city by a factor of more than four — self-immolating at the hands of the far Left over the course of the past two years. In the wake of slashed police budgets and tens of millions of dollars of damage caused by riots in the summer of 2020 — as well as the disastrous statewide decriminalization of all drugs — Rose City can no longer find enough police officers to hire. As of last November, Portland had fewer cops on the street than at any point in the last 30 years, and the city is plagued by stories of 911 callers being left on hold for hours.
These destructive policies, plus unusually draconian lockdowns and school closures during the pandemic — measures that Kotek, in spite of her recent efforts to memory-hole her record, played a pivotal role in creating — have given Drazan a lot to work with. With strong backing from national Republican groups, she’s run an admirable campaign thus far, emphasizing kitchen-table concerns such as crime, education, and quality-of-life issues. She hasn’t run from her pro-life commitments, despite the controversial nature of those views in a progressive state like Oregon, but she’s assured voters that she’ll be bound to the state’s existing laws on abortion.
This much is clear: Oregonians aren’t satisfied with their state’s current political leadership. A January poll found that 54 percent of Oregonians believe the state is on the wrong track, as opposed to just 33 percent who said things were headed in the right direction. If the Beaver State’s voters want a real alternative — a choice, rather than an echo — they’d do well to consider the one on offer from Christine Drazan.