Gov. Kotek says she’s ‘proud’ to serve another term, but Drazan says ‘this race isn’t over’

Gov. Tina Kotek appeared on track to win a second term on Tuesday, in a result that suggests Oregon voters opted for the certainty of an unpopular Democratic governor over a rightward shift in one of the nation’s most enduringly blue states.

As of 10 p.m. returns showed Kotek leading Drazan, 52.4% to 44.9%, with more than 1.4 million ballots counted. Brett Smith, the Pacific Green Party candidate, had 2.6% of the vote.

“Because of your work and support, I am proud to stand here as your next governor,” Kotek said in a speech just after 9:20 p.m. at a raucous election party in downtown Portland. ”I hope it’s okay, but we have four more years together and we’re going to work hard to continue to make progress for the state we love.”

The Associated Press has yet to call the race. OPB does not call races.

If Kotek’s lead holds, Democrats would notch their latest victory in a winning streak that dates back four decades, riding the tide of a national blue wave that flipped U.S. Senate seats in traditionally Republican-led states like Texas, South Carolina and Kansas. Democrats have won the Oregon governor’s office in every election since 1986.

In Hillsboro at a Drazan election party, state Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis took the stage just after 9 p.m. and said the campaign was not giving up. “We know Republicans vote late and we have about a million votes left to count,” Boshart Davis said. “We are in for a long night.”

Shortly after 10 p.m., Drazan took the stage and spoke for about five minutes. She said wouldn’t be speaking again Tuesday. Drazan didn’t concede. “This race isn’t over,” she said, adding votes are still being counted.

In her speech, Drazan called out Democrats for making the race about national politics and ignoring the state’s failing schools and the crisis happening on the streets. “They spent this last year picking partisan fights,” she said. “I have been in rooms across this state and I have heard from Oregonians how much they need change,” Drazan said.

This year’s governor’s race is a partial rematch of 2022, when Kotek and Drazan squared off alongside former state Sen. Betsy Johnson’s well-funded nonaffiliated campaign.

The race followed what has become a familiar narrative in Oregon, with limited polling suggesting the two candidates were virtually neck and neck.

In the run-up to Election Day, political forecasters repeatedly downgraded Kotek’s perceived advantage. A race that was rated as “solid Democratic” following the May primary was eventually handicapped as only “lean Democratic” by outfits like the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections.

Throughout the race, Drazan leaned into Kotek’s low approval ratings to make a case that the governor had overseen a flagging economy and not delivered on promises to address the state’s housing shortage, improve educational outcomes and beef up the state’s behavioral health offerings.

Kotek insisted she has begun to make progress on all of those, but spent most of her time linking Drazan to the unpopular policies of President Donald Trump. Democrats warned that putting a Republican in Mahonia Hall would give Trump a sympathetic Oregon partner on immigration enforcement, slashing healthcare benefits and more.

Drazan continually tried to pivot from that Democratic messaging by promising, if elected, she would enforce the state’s sanctuary state laws and protect Oregonians’ ability to vote-by-mail.

Formerly the state’s longest-serving House speaker, Kotek won office four years ago with a reputation for ruthless efficiency in passing Democratic priorities. The one-time nonprofit advocate often says she will always prioritize people in the most need. She has worked to expand the social safety net and create new regional networks to assist people out of homelessness.

But Kotek acknowledges that success on her top priorities has not come swiftly in her four years as governor.

“If anything, I’ve learned in this first term the wheels of change are probably a little slower than I am happy with,” she recently told OPB. “We need to work harder to continue to make that progress for folks.”

Drazan made a point of telling voters on the campaign trail that she was born in Oregon, in Klamath Falls. She’s the youngest of three children and grew up in a family that she said had to sometimes worry about money. She graduated from George Fox University, a conservative Christian school in Newberg.

Following college, Drazan briefly worked in public relations before heading to Salem, where she worked as a staffer for Republican leaders in an era when Republicans were in the majority in the statehouse.

There, the mom of three saw the potential of influence the Republican Party could have in this state. In 2019, Drazan became the House Republican Leader. She ran for governor in 2022 and was appointed to the state Senate in 2025.