Last August, I wrote of the upcoming contest for the Republican nomination for governor that legislator Christine Drazan, the party’s 2022 nominee, started in the preeminent position and that “any discussion of major contenders for the 2026 Republican nomination for governor has to start with her.”
In the last couple of months the field has changed, to the point that another legislator who last summer wasn’t even on the radar appears to be claiming front-runner status.
As of the end of candidate filing, 15 Republicans have filed for governor. It’s an echo of the even larger crowd of 19 four years ago. When I wrote, “The race has no obvious frontrunner, only a few names familiar to people who follow Oregon politics, and no statewide election winners and or incumbent officeholders above the county level.”
This year, most have no statewide visibility or organization or financing, and almost certainly will generate few votes. But several of them do, which gives the race more structure at least.
And in one case, an unexpected — to put it one way — survey result.
Rep. Ed Diehl of Scio on March 15 released a poll (which he said was conducted independently, not by his campaign) that showed him with 66.4% of the vote among the 10 Republican candidates for governor. The poll is credited to Predict Oregon, and it was said to have surveyed 1,022 Oregon Republicans from March 3 to 8.
It’s not a traditional poll, by any means. While traditional pollsters call or text to gather a statistically representative sample of the electorate, Predict Oregon instead solicited responses online.
David Medina, a social media influencer from Tualatin who has never won office, was said to have come in a distant second (8.7%), with Drazan (7.7%) and 2010 GOP governor nominee Chris Dudley fourth (7.6%).
Diehl’s campaign statement said “Voters want bold action on the economy, public safety, homelessness, and affordability, and this poll shows I’m the clear choice to deliver it.”
Diehl does have one claim to some statewide fame, as an organizer (as head of the Oregon Freedom Coalition) behind the referendum measure which recently pulled 250,000 petition signatures toward overturning last year’s state law increasing transportation taxes and fees.
Initiative and referendum actions can bring statewide organizational support, but it’s no guarantee of ballot success. While he did lead the referendum effort, many of its supporters also plausibly could support one of the other Republican contenders who also have opposed the transportation finance plan.
Ask Bill Sizemore, a true veteran of the initiative process who lost a governor race in a landslide in 1998, and finished fourth in 2010 and eighth in the 2022 in those Republican gubernatorial primaries.
Apart from that, Diehl is a two-term state representative who until recently had little statewide visibility.
The two former governor Republican nominees currently in the race, Dudley and Drazan, hardly look like pushovers in the primary.
Dudley can point to at least two good data points. First, since the Democrats started their current string of gubernatorial races in 1986, no Republican has come closer to winning (in 2010) than Dudley, when he got within a percent and a half of Democrat John Kitzhaber. Second, he already has significant money, roughly matching the longer-running Drazan, and including a million dollars from Nike co-founder Phil Knight.
Still, Dudley hasn’t been very visible in Oregon since his last run for governor 16 years ago, his fame-making days with the Trail Blazers are far in the rear view mirror, and questions about how grounded in Oregon he is are likely to develop. In 2010 he declared his residence was in Camas, Wash., apparently to cut payment of Oregon taxes. After his close loss for governor in 2010, he moved to California (in 2012) and stayed there until 2020. He reports he now lives in Sisters.
Too, there’s always the possibility someone else in the pack could break out, as to some degree Drazan did in 2024. Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell is strongly rooted in the Keizer-Salem area, with a base to build from as strong as some other contenders.
Despite all that, the race at this point still looks most like Drazan’s to lose. She came close to winning against the same (nearly certainly) Democratic nominee just four years ago. She has remained politically active, is in office now (usually a plus) and her partisan network no doubt is alive and well. At most recent reports, she still had the largest treasury of any candidate. She also started her campaign relatively early, before most of the others, and that’s usually a significant advantage.
The Democratic side of the governor primary is almost as crowded as the Republican, but it’s a different story; only incumbent governor Kotek has a statewide profile, organization or financing to credibly run a governor’s race. The only real question seems to be exactly how large a percentage of the vote she gets.
In what looks like a Democratic year in a Democratic-leaning state, the Republican nominee will have a serious challenge come November. But the last couple of months have made clear that the Republican nomination will not be casually gotten either.
This column first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
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