State Sen. Christine Drazan led early unofficial results Tuesday night in Oregon’s Republican primary for governor, putting herself in position for a rematch with Gov. Tina Kotek after a race built around education, affordability and taxes.
Drazan had 44.5% of the vote in the first returns released by Oregon counties at 8 p.m., with state Rep. Ed Diehl in second at nearly 31% and former NBA player Chris Dudley at about 16%. The primary featured 14 candidates, and the winner will face Kotek in November.
That is the race Oregon Republicans have been chasing for years. The state has not elected a Republican governor since Vic Atiyeh in the 1980s, and Kotek was already the Democratic incumbent heading into Tuesday’s vote. She cruised through a Democratic primary with nine candidates, winning 85% of the vote.
For Drazan, the early lead would give her another shot at the same office she narrowly missed in 2022, when she lost to Kotek by about four percentage points. Polls over the past few months had also shown Drazan ahead of Diehl and Dudley, though Tuesday’s vote still had to be counted across the state.
Among the other Republican contenders, Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell remained in the race but had not matched the fundraising levels of the top three candidates. Dudley, meanwhile, returned to a statewide contest after his 2010 run for governor ended in a loss to former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
In interviews with voters, Republicans said they would back whichever candidate emerged from the primary. Their priorities were not complicated: education, affordability and taxes.
Linda Neace, speaking about her grandsons, said one is facing outsourcing and could lose his job at the end of the summer. She said he now has to decide whether to stay in Oregon or leave, a worry that captured the economic unease running through the primary.
That makes the November race less a question of whether the Republican nominee can surprise Oregon’s Democratic lean and more a test of whether the party can turn voter frustration over costs and schools into enough cross-cutting support to matter.
