PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — State Sen. Christine Drazan led Republicans in early unofficial vote results in that party’s primary for Oregon governor Tuesday night.
Drazan had 44.5% of the vote while State Rep. Ed Diehl was second with nearly 31%.
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The leader among Republicans who want to unseat incumbent Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, emerged from a group of 14 candidates running in the party’s primary this year.
The winner of Tuesday night’s primary will face Kotek in the November general election, as Kotek easily handled nine candidates on the Democratic primary ticket, with 85% of the vote. Her challengers raised little or no money during the campaign and did not hold the visual profile statewide as Kotek.
If Drazan wins the Republican nomination, she and Kotek will once again face off in November, as they did in 2022.
In that contest, Drazan lost to Kotek by about four percentage points.
Polls over the past few months have shown Drazan in the lead of her main competitors — Diehl and financial planner and former Portland Trail Blazers Chris Dudley. While still in the running, Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell has not come close to the level of fundraising that the other three candidates at the top of the Republican race.
Dudley was far behind in vote totals on Tuesday night, garnering about 16% of the vote.
The heavily blue state has not elected a Republican governor since Vic Atiyeh in the 1980s.
Republican voters KATU interviewed on Tuesday may not all be voting for the same candidate but said they would support whoever wins Tuesday’s primary.
Education, affordability and taxes drove their votes, they said.
“I’ve got two grandsons that work for different companies. And they are outsourcing. And one of them will be losing his job at the end of the summer,” Linda Neace, a precinct committee person for the Clackamas County Republican Party, said. “And so now he has to reevaluate, does he stay in Oregon or does he leave?”
Dudley has also run for the state’s top political office in the past. He lost to former Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2010.
KATU’s Christinia Giardinelli Tanvi Varma contributed.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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