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Tobias Read speaks at the Democratic election night party held at the Hilton in Portland, Ore., Nov. 5, 2024.
Brooke Herbert / OPB
Tobias Read appears poised to become Oregon’s next secretary of state, according to partial returns.
Democratic candidate Read had an overwhelming lead over Republican Dennis Linthicum with 73% of the vote counted as of 7:20 a.m. Wednesday.
The secretary of state’s office is an important one; it’s charged with overseeing elections and auditing state agencies. The secretary of state is also second in line to become governor and holds a seat on the State Land Board.
“I am incredibly grateful tonight for Oregonians' vote of confidence in our vision for safe and secure elections, a more accountable government and bringing stability and competence back to the secretary of state‘s office,” said Read at the Democratic Party of Oregon’s election night event in Portland.
There has been a lot of turnover in the office in recent years. Dennis Richardson, who was the first Republican to hold Oregon statewide office in nearly four decades, died of brain cancer while still serving his term in 2019. Bev Clarno served the remainder of Richardson’s term. Shemia Fagan, a Democrat, won election in 2020 and resigned in 2023 after revelations of her lucrative side gig with a cannabis company came to light. Gov. Tina Kotek tapped LaVonne Griffin-Valade to fill the remainder of Fagan’s term. Griffin-Valade did not run for the seat.
Read, the current state treasurer and former state lawmaker, said he plans to bring stability to the role after a period of relatively high turnover. Read, who also ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2022, served two consecutive terms as state treasurer and can no longer run for the role. He said he would bring the same level of no-drama to the state’s second-highest-ranking job that he brought to his treasurer role.
Leading up to the general election, the low-key race for secretary of state became slightly more heated after officials with Oregon’s Driver and Motor Vehicles Division acknowledged they had mistakenly registered more than 1,000 noncitizens to vote.
Linthicum, who filed a lawsuit in 2020 questioning the validity of mail-in voting, seized on the issue. Linthicum is from outside of Klamath Falls and has served as a state lawmaker since 2017, but cannot seek reelection to his Senate seat after participating in legislative walkouts. Linthicum is also a businessman and rancher who has served on the Klamath County Commission.
Read and Linthicum are on vastly different ends of the political spectrum, and even when it comes down to the very basics — how Oregonians vote — their views differ dramatically.
Read would like to see Oregon’s vote-by-mail serve as a national model, while Linthicum repeatedly raised questions about the validity of mail-in voting.
Read said he was “appalled” by the voter registration errors and said the secretary of state must move quickly to “protect the integrity of our system.” But he said he still believes in the vote-by-mail system and that it could serve as a national model. Oregon has been voting by mail since the early 1990s.
“Oregon continues to lead the way when it comes to safe and secure voting, but we cannot take that for granted,” said Read Tuesday night. “We have to be committed to building on that success.”
Despite filing a lawsuit claiming there was widespread disenfranchisement of Oregon voters through vote-by-mail, Linthicum pushed back on the notion that he would end vote-by-mail if elected.
“I will direct my effort toward making our vote-by-mail system safe and secure until the will of the people might change legislative direction,” Linthicum wrote in response to questions from OPB.
OPB reporter Tiffany Camhi contributed to this story.