Gov. Tina Kotek didn’t catch the Democratic “blue wave” that rolled over Oregon and the nation last week.
While she was easily reelected, every single Oregon county as of midday Nov. 9 had voted more Republican in the governor’s race than they did in the 2024 presidential race, according to an OJP analysis (92% of votes have been counted).
Oregon’s gubernatorial result differs sharply from the eight other states where an incumbent Democratic governor ran for reelection this November.
At a Nov. 6 news conference, Kotek was asked by OJP to speculate why she underperformed Vice President Kamala Harris with Oregon’s voters. “I have no idea,” she said, adding, “My job is to get back to work and make sure Oregon has what it needs.”
Oregon’s incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, on the other hand, exceeded the 2024 Democratic percentages in all 36 counties when he won reelection Nov. 3.
Comparing midterm elections to the most recent presidential race is often used to gauge shifts in individual and party enthusiasm. Comparing Kotek and Christine Drazan’s 2026 race to their 2022 contest is problematic, however, because that race included unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, a moderate former Democratic state senator who won 8.6% of the vote.
In last week’s national blue wave, every other Democratic governor running for reelection won their races with larger percentages of the vote in their state than Harris captured in 2024. Not so in Oregon. Kotek has 53.3%, 2 percentage points below Harris’ 55.3% result.
Lee Shaker, a political communication professor at Portland State University, credited Kotek’s status as a polarizing figure, combined with Oregon’s struggling economy, as the reason she did not do as well.
“People are looking around and thinking that the state’s not going in the direction they want it to go in, and holding her [Kotek] accountable,” Shaker said.
The struggles of the state’s economy do not rest solely with Kotek, Shaker added, but voters found it harder to understand the “longer causal chain” of federal tariff changes.
Betsy Johnson, who represented Columbia County in Salem for 20 years, said Kotek’s underperformance reflects voter dissatisfaction with the condition of Oregon.
“People want good schools,” Johnson said. “They want lower taxes. They want economic development opportunities. They want to see government employees come back to work and serve them.”
The state’s governorship has been firmly blue since 1986, when Democrat Neil Goldschmidt defeated Republican Norma Paulus. Democrats’ 40-year winning streak meant Drazan faced a “structural disadvantage,” Shaker said.
In a year when the political tide lifted Democratic governors above Kamala Harris’ 2024 waterline, Kotek’s was the boat that took on water.
Still, for a Republican to win, Shaker said, “you’re going to have to make up tens of thousands of votes.”