Oregon’s Democratic electorate picks Tina Kotek as the party’s nominee for Governor

Ore­gon’s for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic Speak­er of the House Tina Kotek has secured the par­ty’s 2022 guber­na­to­r­i­al nom­i­na­tion and will attempt to keep the state’s top posi­tion in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands this autumn, ini­tial returns show.

With more than 300,000 votes count­ed, Kotek had well over a major­i­ty of the statewide vote (55%+), with more sup­port than the rest of the field combined.

State Trea­sur­er Tobias Read, Kotek’s main com­peti­tor, was in sec­ond with 32.34%. No oth­er can­di­date was get­ting more than 3% support.

Kotek has a com­fort­able lead over Read in the most pop­u­lous coun­ties, from Mult­nom­ah and Wash­ing­ton (Port­land metro area) to Lane (Eugene). Kotek is also win­ning medi­um sized coun­ties like Hood Riv­er and Deschutes (Bend).

Read is pre­vail­ing in some small­er rur­al coun­ties, while trail­ing Kotek more nar­row­ly in parts of the Willamette Val­ley, like Yamhill County.

Read, like cur­rent Gov­er­nor Kate Brown, who is term-lim­it­ed, has pre­vi­ous­ly been elect­ed statewide. How­ev­er, he was unable to turn that expe­ri­ence into an elec­toral advan­tage in his guber­na­to­r­i­al bid.

“Thank you #TeamTi­na — this win is because of you,” the cam­paign tweet­ed after the race was called for Kotek. “You know what’s at stake in Novem­ber, let’s rest up and then get ready to fight for the state that we love!”

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Ore­gon prompt­ly offered its con­grat­u­la­tions, as did the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion (DGA).

“Tina is a proven leader who made record invest­ments in edu­ca­tion and afford­able hous­ing, raised the min­i­mum wage, and secured strong pro­tec­tions for repro­duc­tive rights,” the DGA (which is chaired by ) said. “We’re all-in to elect her gov­er­nor and keep Ore­gon blue in November!”

“Con­grats to Tina Kotek on win­ning the nom­i­na­tion to become Ore­gon’s next gov­er­nor!” said Sen­a­tor Jefff Merkley, who as a for­mer Speak­er is one of Kotek’s pre­de­ces­sors. “I’ve known Tina for many years and I’ve seen how hard she works to make life bet­ter for Ore­go­ni­ans. She will make a fan­tas­tic governor.”

Tobias Read­’s cam­paign did not offer a reac­tion to the results through its social media chan­nels, but Read did call Kotek to con­cede.

Kotek out­spent Read in the pri­ma­ry and was backed by key con­stituen­cies, includ­ing sig­nif­i­cant seg­ments of the labor move­ment and envi­ron­men­tal com­mu­ni­ty. Kotek resigned from the House to cam­paign full time for governor.

Hav­ing won the pri­ma­ry hand­i­ly, Kotek will emerge from the nom­i­nat­ing round in good shape, but still faces the chal­lenge of build­ing an effec­tive statewide cam­paign that can attract enough sup­port to pro­pel Kotek past two oth­er promi­nent women in the gen­er­al elec­tion: Chris­tine Drazan and Bet­sy Johnson.

Repub­li­can vot­ers appear to have nom­i­nat­ed Drazan to be their stan­dard bear­er, while ex-Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tor John­son will appear on the bal­lot as an inde­pen­dent, backed by big mon­ey from Nike’s Phil Knight.

Drazan is one of Kotek’s for­mer col­leagues in the Legislature.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers have been express­ing con­cern for months that John­son’s pres­ence in the race could hurt their nom­i­nee in the autumn, siphon­ing enough votes to poten­tial­ly cre­ate an open­ing for the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee. It’s a sce­nario that has come to pass in oth­er states in the last decade, notably Maine.

Kotek is pop­u­lar with the Demo­c­ra­t­ic base and will have no trou­ble win­ning in Port­land and Eugene. But statewide majori­ties are made in the sub­urbs, in places like Clacka­mas Coun­ty. To take down both John­son and Drazan, Kotek needs to be able to con­nect with vot­ers there as well as in the state’s two big urban centers.