A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022
Republicans compete in crowded primary fi eld for governor
Drazan has edge in
recent polls
By HILLARY BORRUD
The Oregonian
With 19 Republicans run-
ning for Oregon governor,
it’s easy to see why many
voters don’t recognize most
of the candidates’ names and
have yet to decide how they
will vote.
Nearly half of likely
Republican primary voters in
a recent survey told pollsters
they don’t know who they’ll
support.
Campaigns will work hard
to change that in the fi nal
week before the May 17 pri-
mary, with a fl urry of polit-
ical ads already hitting tele-
visions and smartphones that
will only intensify . Some of
the most well-funded Repub-
lican campaigns squirreled
away money until now and
have begun unleashing ads
in hopes they’ll build name
recognition as voters begin
fi lling out their ballots.
Christine Drazan, the for-
mer state House Republican
leader from Oregon City, has
reported raising more than
$2 million since January
2021 and spending nearly
$1.3 million. Bud Pierce, a
Salem oncologist, has sunk
$990,000 on his own cam-
paign, out of nearly $1.6 mil-
lion in total fundraising.
This year’s Republi-
can gubernatorial ballot
also stands out for the vari-
ety of candidates. Drazan,
who still has two children
in high school, has pointed
out that if elected she would
be Oregon’s fi rst Republi-
can woman governor. Jes-
sica Gomez, the owner of
an electronics manufactur-
ing business in Medford and
a mom of two school-aged
daughters, would be the fi rst
Latina governor in the state.
Pierce, 65, or former law-
maker and corporate consul-
tant Bob Tiernan, 66, would
be the oldest candidate to
become Oregon governor in
nearly 90 years.
With Republican voter
turnout in the non presiden-
tial primary potentially under
50% and so many candi-
dates to split the vote, some-
one could win the Republi-
can nomination for governor
with a plurality of roughly
65,000 to 80,000 votes.
That means the victori-
ous Republican only has to
win over about 20% of pri-
mary voters to clinch the
nomination.
At a high level, Oregon
Republican voters have indi-
cated they’re looking for a
gubernatorial candidate who
can win the general elec-
tion, “fi ght the Democrats”
and “aggressively push back
on what they feel like is the
progressive politics in the
state,” said John Horvick,
the senior vice president at
DHM Research. But, Hor-
vick said, “There’s so many
candidates that the winner
doesn’t necessarily have to
appeal to what the Republi-
cans want this year.”
Crime and homelessness
Top Republican concerns
of fi ghting crime and home-
lessness, with Portland as the
poster child for problems,
dominate most gubernato-
rial candidates’ ads. Tiernan
has zeroed in on a tough-on-
crime approach in his sizable
advertising campaign. Tier-
nan played a central role in
the eff ort to pass Measure
11, Oregon’s mandatory sen-
Republican candidates for governor include, in top row
from left, businesswoman Jessica Gomez; Sandy Mayor Stan
Pulliam; former state House Republican Leader Christine
Drazan; and Baker City Mayor Kerry McQuisten; and lower
row from left, political consultant Bridget Barton; Salem
oncologist Bud Pierce; former Rep. Bob Tiernan; and former
Alsea Superintendent Mark Thielman.
tencing law, in the 1990s.
Shawn Cleave, a partner
at public aff airs and lobby-
ing fi rm Pilot Strategies who
served as policy director for
Republican Chris Dudley’s
2010 gubernatorial cam-
paign , said Sandy m ayor
and insurance executive Stan
Pulliam’s messaging is “spot
on for a Republican primary
in 2022 — even in Oregon,”
although he noted those mes-
sages do not appeal to him
personally.
Pulliam, 40, has attacked
Oregon schools for adopting
protocols to support trans-
gender students, as Repub-
lican politicians across the
nation go after support-
ers of transgender children
and LGBTQ people gener-
ally. Cleave noted there are
“a few other known names”
in the primary but “I just
don’t see a large diff erence
between their fi nal vote per-
centage and random chance
— it takes money in a mar-
ket economy to increase
name ID.”
Bill Sizemore, 70, the
anti-tax activist who got vot-
ers to pass property tax lim-
its in the 1990s and pleaded
guilty to three counts of fel-
ony tax evasion in 2011,
could benefi t from a combi-
nation of chance and linger-
ing name recognition from
his ballot initiative cam-
paigns and 1998 nomina-
tion for governor. Sizemore
has reported raising $25,000,
mostly through loans to his
campaign, and he reported
paying himself thousands of
dollars for campaign work
including fundraising letters
and media, according to state
records.
Drazan, who served three
years in the House before
stepping down to run for
governor last winter, said
she is eager to change Ore-
gon public policy in a way
she could not as leader of the
minority party in the state
House.
“A Republican gover-
nor creates that,” said Dra-
zan, who is 49. She has hired
the East Coast campaign
consulting fi rm that helped
reelect Maryland Gov.
Larry Hogan, “because they
know how to get Republi-
cans elected in Democratic
states.”
Drazan proved to be a
sharp and eff ective politi-
cal leader for House Repub-
licans. Less than a year into
her fi rst term, she convinced
fellow Republicans to oust
then-leader Carl Wilson, of
Grants Pass, and elect her to
the job. Drazan delivered in
her new role, helping Repub-
licans to pick up a net of one
House seat in the November
2020 election thanks in par-
ticular to a hard-fought and
expensive campaign for a
northwest coastal district.
At the same time, she took
a fi rm stance that violence
was not an acceptable way
to oppose COVID-19 man-
dates, including the closure
of the state Capitol to the
public. Drazan led the House
Republican caucus to vote to
expel then-Rep. Mike Near-
man for letting armed right-
wing demonstrators into the
Capitol during a December
2020 special session; Near-
man cast the lone “no” vote.
On policy, Drazan sent a
clear message to fossil fuel
and other natural resources
industries that House Repub-
licans would do whatever
was necessary to shut down
Democrats’ greenhouse gas
cap-and-trade plan, when
she led her caucus in a 2020
Capitol walkout to protest
the climate change bill up
for a vote in the state Sen-
ate. Later that year lawmak-
ers reconvened in special
sessions and Republicans
worked with Democrats on
a series of police reform and
accountability bills.
‘Broadening the base’
Pierce has been cam-
paigning since late 2020,
traveling around the state
while continuing to work at
least fi ve days a week as a
cancer doctor.
His second campaign for
governor was immediately
marked by tragedy: Pierce’s
wife, Selma, was killed
hours after he announced
his candidacy when a driver
struck her while she was out
for a walk on a December
evening.
Pierce said that if elected
governor, he would push
for an overhaul of Oregon’s
property tax system so that
nonprofi ts like hospital sys-
tems would have to begin
paying taxes and everyone
else could pay less. “I’m
very interested in broaden-
ing the base and lowering the
rates,” Pierce said.
Tiernan, who has been
out of public offi ce in Ore-
gon since 1997, came roar-
ing back onto viewers’ TV
screens this spring thanks
in large part to two big cash
infusions to his campaign:
$500,000 from the California
owners of bargain chain Gro-
cery Outlet and a $500,000
personal loan he gave to his
campaign. Tiernan served
as chief operating offi cer of
Grocery Outlet from 2003 to
2007.
“I have a track record of
running and turning around
large multi million dollar
businesses with thousands
of employees — fi xing prob-
lems and getting results,”
Tiernan said in response to
a question from The Orego-
nian . “The homeless problem
will be resolved. Our streets
and parks will be clean.
Riots, lawlessness or out-of-
control crime will have been
stopped. Our schools will
be teaching, not preaching
political correctness.”
Primary: Kotek and Read are both focusing heavily on leadership
Continued from Page A2
Gov. Kate Brown, a Dem-
ocrat, also angered certain
Oregonians by issuing some
of the nation’s most expan-
sive and longest COVID-19
mandates. She also disap-
pointed some voters by order-
ing or allowing schools to be
closed for longer than in most
other states and frustrated
others when she put teach-
ers in line to receive vaccines
before older Oregonians.
It’s an open question how
much Brown’s high disap-
proval rating — a recent poll
found she was the least pop-
ular governor in the nation
— could hurt the chances of
the Democratic nominee for
governor.
Kotek and Read are both
focusing heavily on leader-
ship and how they’d improve
government operations that
are failing Oregonians.
“I think what we need in
our next governor is some-
one who’s willing to say what
most of us already know right
now, what we’re doing isn’t
working,” Read said during
an Oregonian editorial board
interview.
Kotek said she wants
to be governor so that she
can ensure better delivery
of government services in
the future, including pro-
grams passed while she was
speaker, such as paid family
and medical leave. That pro-
gram is expected to launch
nine months late, costing
Oregonians approximately
$453 million in missed ben-
efi ts. “Right now, the sta-
tus quo isn’t good enough,”
Kotek said. “I’m running for
governor because we have to
get the job done.”
In all, 15 Democrats are
running in the May 17 pri-
mary. Aside from Kotek and
Read, who have raised $1.9
million and $1.5 million
since January 2021, the next
largest campaign spending
is by George Carrillo, a pro-
gram manager at the Oregon
Health Authority. Carrillo has
reported raising $173,000
and spending $122,000,
according to state records.
Both of the leading can-
didates are spending a lot of
time talking about the two
issues that likely primary
voters rated as top concerns:
homelessness, which voters
rated as their No. 1 concern,
and crime.
Top issues
Kotek said she would
focus on getting the most
vulnerable Oregonians expe-
riencing homelessness, who
she said are veterans, fami-
lies, unaccompanied youth
and people 65 and older, into
housing within her fi rst two
years in offi ce. “Our streets
should look better,” Kotek
said. She has made increas-
ing Oregon’s supply of hous-
ing a top priority for years
and pushed for tens of mil-
lions in spending on shel-
ters in early 2020, before the
state received federal stimu-
lus and tax revenue windfalls
that ultimately helped boost
housing budgets.
Read said in a recent City
Club of Portland and KGW
debate that Portland-area
leaders have not tackled
homelessness with “urgency
and seriousness.” His plan
would prioritize increasing
shelter and transitional hous-
ing and proposes “clean-
ing up our public spaces ”
by prohibiting camping next
to highways and helping
local governments pay for
increased garbage pickup
and other sanitation services.
Read and Kotek both said
it’s important to adequately
fund police, although that’s
not something they directly
control. Read said he would
launch a statewide gun buy-
back program, while Kotek
said she believes a more
eff ective solution is a law
passed earlier this year to
direct some Medicaid spend-
ing to violence interven-
tion when people injured in
shootings or other violence
crimes wind up in the hospi-
tal. Kotek said she also sup-
ports a push from Portland’s
Black community for more
after school programs as one
approach to stem the city’s
record gun violence.
One way Read’s cam-
paign stands out is his focus
on education, an issue that
voters usually rate as among
their highest concerns. “I
want us to measure our-
selves as a state based on the
well-being of kids,” Read
said in an interview. “I think
that’s the ultimate mecha-
nism to measure what the
state’s going to look like in
the future.” He wants Ore-
gon to provide universal pre-
kindergarten and raise liter-
acy by third grade, in part by
ensuring every student has a
teacher trained in the science
of reading.
In any other year, that
might appeal to a broad
swath of Oregonians. The
$9.3 billion S tate S chool
F und, which accounts for
30% of the state general
fund and lottery budget, is
an area of state government
where the governor has sig-
nifi cant control. John Hor-
vick, senior vice president
at DHM Research, said in
the recent past when poll-
sters asked Oregon voters to
list the top issues of concern,
they almost always named
“jobs, the economy and edu-
cation,” Horvick said. “Then
with COVID-19, education
just isn’t showing up as the
dominant issue.”
Horvick said he does not
know why voters aren’t list-
ing education as a top con-
cern this year, but one pos-
sibility is that other pressing
issues crowded it out. “If you
look at the leadership ques-
tions, a lot of (voters who
were surveyed) are just mad
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at Kate Brown,” Horvick
said.
Another way Kotek
and Read are diff erentiat-
ing themselves is on how
they would approach turn-
ing around state government.
Read has said he would ask
for the resignation of all
agency directors; Kotek said
that based on input from
a human resources expert,
she would meet with each
agency director and ask them
to prove to her why they
should have those jobs.