Drazan narrowly lost to Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek in a three-way race in 2022

By Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle

Republican Christine Drazan will run for governor again in 2026, raising the possibility of a rematch with her Democratic rival Gov. Tina Kotek.

Drazan, R-Canby, announced her campaign Monday, days after county commissioners appointed her to fill a state Senate seat. 

“Our governor may be in charge, but her state is out of control,” she told a thunderous crowd of dozens of workers at the Portland-based ship manufacturing company Gunderson Marine & Iron. “This place we love is so incredible and so beautiful, mountains, trees, our rivers, our ocean, abundant natural resources. So we have to stop and ask ourselves, why, despite all of this, are people leaving?”

Before facing Kotek, Drazan would have to convince Republican voters to give her another chance in the May primary. Oregon hasn’t elected a Republican as governor since the 1980s, and only two Republicans have won a statewide election since 2000. 

Conventional political wisdom suggests Republicans will have a tough time in 2026, with an unpopular Republican president and unified GOP control at the federal level. 

But Drazan, a former House Republican leader, will face a different set of fundraising rules than in her first run for governor. State representatives can’t fundraise during the legislative session, but senators can. State campaign finance records as of Monday show she has more than $99,000 in her campaign’s bank, significantly less than Kotek’s $1.5 million.

Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, introduced Drazan Monday after she officially filed the paperwork for her campaign. She framed the state’s struggles with rising cost of living, taxes, crime and addiction and homelessness as a result of leaders who have ignored the needs of small businesses while failing to use taxpayer dollars efficiently. 

“The cement beneath our feet has seen generations come and go, all with the same resounding commitment to work that matters,” Drazan said. “My vision for Oregon through the dark days of the past is a brighter future and a better tomorrow. We can have work that matters again. We can have schools that succeed in teaching students to learn. We can have safe streets and lower taxes.”

Drazan didn’t take any questions from reporters after announcing her campaign, but an aide says she plans to do so later in the week.

Drazan enters what is so far a less-crowded field than the 2022 Republican primary election, which featured a 19-candidate field by the time voters chose their primary candidate in May 2022. At the time, Drazan won a plurality of votes but earned just shy of 25% of primary voters. Kotek defeated her in the general election by more than 3 percentage points, while nonaffiliated challenger Betsy Johnson, formerly a conservative Democratic state senator from the North Coast, received 8.6% of the vote.

This time around, only one notable Republican candidate has entered the party’s race for the governorship so far: Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell, who holds less influence in statewide politics than Drazan. 

In the Oregon Legislature, Drazan has developed a reputation for thwarting Democrats’ plans on the grounds of helping everyday Oregonians. In 2020, she was a thorn in the side of then-House Speaker Kotek, who slammed her and her fellow Republican leaders for “creating an insurmountable backlog of good bills and good budgets” due to their participation in a quorum-denying walkout over cap-and-trade legislation.

Drazan has also spearheaded the opposition to a multi-billion dollar transportation package aimed at averting hundreds of layoffs in the state’s shrinking Department of Transportation. In June, she blasted Senate President Rob Wagner for his handling of a dispute in which Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, raised his voice at a female senator during a transportation committee hearing. At the same time, she was not among the seven Republican representatives who boycotted the floor session in response.

Drazan has also had to walk a fine line when it comes to her profile and national Republican politics. She led her caucus in 2020 to condemn claims from the Oregon Republican Party that the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection was a “false flag” operation. Most recently, however, she lent credibility to the false claims of President Donald Trump that Portland has been overrun with domestic terror and unabated violence, following his announcement that he would be sending the National Guard to Portland. She later clarified that she did not support the decision.

The Democratic Governors Association, which spent more than $6 million to elect Kotek in 2022, panned Drazan’s entry.

“After national Republicans wasted millions on her in 2022, Christine Drazan is back for another failed run to bring Donald Trump’s agenda to Oregon,” association spokesperson Johanna Warshaw said in a statement. “In contrast, Governor Kotek has been hard at work to address Oregon’s biggest challenges: building new shelter beds and affordable homes, providing funding for first responders and wildfire management, expanding addiction and mental health services, lowering prescription drug costs, and fighting back against Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.”

In a fundraising email to her campaign’s supporters, Kotek sought to portray Drazan as an ally of the president who would carry out his agenda.

“Does this sound like someone who is aligned with Oregon’s values? NO!,” she wrote. “It sounds like Trump in disguise trying to reshape our state according to his own right-wing agenda.”

Drazan’s announcement coincides with an uphill battle facing Republicans and critics of the recent transportation package, which was passed in a special legislative session that lasted from Aug. 29 to Oct. 1. They hope to place the measure’s temporary payroll tax increase, its 6-cent gas tax increase and car registration and title fee increases on the November 2026 ballot for voters to repeal it.

Kotek, meanwhile, has yet to sign that package into law, despite her forceful push at the end of the official legislative session for lawmakers to return to Salem to advance the legislation. That decision has angered critics who say she is delaying her signature so that supporters of the ballot initiative will have less time to begin gathering their own signatures. She has not yet announced her official plans for the 2026 election.

Drazan will be touring the state for her campaign. Her next stop is Eugene on Tuesday.

Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri is a reporter based in Salem, Oregon, covering Gov. Tina Kotek and the Oregon Legislature for the Oregon Capital Chronicle. This story previously appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.