Christine Drazan holds press conference after winning Oregon Republican primary for governor

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:03]You guys all seem so far away to me right now.

[00:00:13]>> This is like eating me for lunch. This is very big.

[00:00:22]Hi, I'm Christine Drezen and I am excited to be here today as the Republican nominee uh for governor of the great state of Oregon and I am here today to talk about the future of our state. Uh we know that Oregon has never ever been in such a difficult position when it comes to quality of life issues, when it comes to affordability, when it comes to solving the problems that are significant challenges that we have been talking about now for four years. Our current governor has failed to address these problems. In our last race, she promised an awful lot. She promised to solve homelessness. She promised to build homes. She promised that she would clean up our streets and today we know that that is just not how it's played out. She is a failed leader. Every single time we've had a problem, her solution has been higher taxes and her solution has been more regulations. All we've gotten is Oregonians, has been higher cost of living and failed government. We need change so desperately. and I am excited to serve as Oregon's next governor to solve these problems with or with the people of this state. I'm committed to fighting for families. I'm committed to ensuring that kids can read in the third grade, that our diplomas mean something again, that teachers are supported in the classroom and that our school year is long enough that kids can actually learn. I'm committed to ensuring that we cut taxes, that we improve affordability, that we fire ineffective agency heads, and that we stop the political agendas. These are not partisan commitments to the people of this state. These are common sense reforms that we're desperate for. We are desperate for leaders that set aside the special interests, that set aside the national agendas, and instead focus on the people. And the people are very clear right now. They cannot afford it here. They are not satisfied with the level of progress that's been made resolving our homeless challenges and frankly our safety issues. If you come to Portland where we are today, you might see lots of areas where we don't see the kind of encampments that we used to. And I'm incredibly excited to see the progress that the mayor has made on those issues. But what we know is getting someone off of a sidewalk hasn't actually got them help long term.

[00:02:42]They're not in recovery. They're not in me. They're not in a long-term secure bed that allows them to get the mental health stability that they so desperately need. That takes partnership from the state and that's not partnership that we've seen yet. As governor, I'm committed to ending homelessness as we know it. By addressing the challenges on our street by need and by name. We have to know who's living on our streets to be able to serve them and get them off our streets. Frankly, we have to be able to enforce the laws and the rules that we have today. We can't turn a blind eye when people are committing crimes. We cannot ignore property crimes. We cannot ignore the people that are slowly dying in front of us. We have got to continue to reform Measure 110. I support full repeal of Measure 110. There's no universe where drug use is neutral. It's bad for the person using. It's bad for the communities that are impacted by that use. I'm pleased to see that Maloma County is considering legislation to create buffer zones around schools that I supported in the 2025 and 2026 session. It's incredibly important to balance out needs. For far too long, the people that live here have been harmed by the policies of these politicians.

[00:03:50]It's time for them to have a voice. It's time for them to be heard. And for kids that are going to these schools, they shouldn't have to walk past biohazards to be able to get into their into their school doors every single morning. It's time to restore confidence in our government. It's time to restore confidence in our state. It's time to lower costs. And it's especially important that we help people that need it, but stand up for those that live here by choice, that want to stay here, but are right now looking across the river at some place that's more affordable and frankly is cleaner and safer for them. We need to keep our legacy here in Oregon. We don't want to lose it. As governor, I will fight for Oregonians because these are problems that I know are solvable. I believe that we can solve homelessness. We can lower cost of living and we can help our kids.

[00:04:34]This can be the best state in the nation to raise your family. I mean, look at this today. It's an absolutely amazing, gorgeous day out here. This is why we love it here. This is why we live here.

[00:04:44]It's the best state in the nation. It needs to be the best state in the nation for all of us that are experiencing it.

[00:04:49]This can be the best place in the nation to start a business. We've got to cut taxes. We've got to reduce regulations so that businesses choose to stay here and grow. We need good jobs. We need projects. We need people in the construction industry to stay. We need people across across sectors to stay.

[00:05:08]Our economy is flatlining right now. And it's not because people don't have ideas. It's not because businesses aren't innovating. It's because we have pushed businesses out. All we do is raise taxes on them and ch and treat them like they're our own personal piggy bank. We've got to treat them like they're job creators. and we need them to stay to be able to provide the public services that we all depend on. This is our opportunity in this election to actually make change in our state. The status quo has failed us. Year after year after year, we've given it chance after chance after chance to do right by the people of this state. And it's an election year, so you're hearing a lot of promises made by our sitting governor. But I can tell you, she couldn't make good on a single one of those promises in the last four years.

[00:05:50]She doesn't have the capacity. She doesn't have the skill set. She cannot do the job. and Oregonians cannot afford to give her another four years. I'm asking Oregonians every single day in this campaign. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk. I'm committed to fighting for you. I'm committed to fixing what's broken in our state. This isn't about partisan politics. This isn't about national politics. It's about your home, your kids, your savings account, and your future. And I'm asking people every single day for their vote so that we can work together to turn our state around. So, thank you guys for being here. I'm happy to take questions.

[00:06:27]>> How are you going to convince the moderate Democrats and the unabilated voters that you need to capture in order to win this election that you are not in lock step for president?

[00:06:42]>> Yeah, Tina Cotch needs Donald Trump to be in the White House. She needs someone to run against. She has nothing to run on. She doesn't have a record that she can stand behind. She has nothing to point to. She has four years of failure.

[00:06:57]That's all she's got. So, she is lucky to have Donald Trump in the White House right now because it gives her something to run on. But I can tell you this, this election is a referendum on Tina Cotek and her failed leadership.

[00:07:14]That's what we're talking about right now. And my opportunity to be able to fight for hearts and minds and Oregonians really is to focus on the facts, the facts on the ground in Oregon. I'm a lifelong Oregonian. I love this place. I'm running because I love Oregon and I want to fight for the people of this state. Uh I am not running for DC. I'm not anybody's puppet. I am here to lead on behalf of the people of this state and I will always always side with the people of the state. If the president of the United States, I don't care who it is because we're going to have a new president halfway through my term. I don't care who the president of the United States is. If that person does something that harms the people of this state, I will fight back. But we also I'm not here to pick a partisan fight.

[00:07:55]Not with anybody. We I'm here to serve the people and I am here to make sure that Oregon gets federal funds to replace our interstate bridge. I'm here to make sure that we get support during wildfire season or if there's flooding.

[00:08:08]I'm here to be an advocate for the people of this state. And we can't operate alone. We have to operate in partnership with all of levels of government. We need local government to partner with the state. We need the state to partner with the federal government. And right now, that has not been the approach of this governor. All she's done is pick partisan fights to the detriment of or of Oregonians.

[00:08:28]>> One thing that I thought was really interesting is that you seem to be really consistent and you stuck to your message kind of the whole way through even when a couple of your opponents seem to escalate or kind of discourse at the end. One of them called for you to drop out of the race. Was that very intentional on your part? How did you navigate that?

[00:08:44]>> I I'm not a rookie.

[00:08:49]I'm I am a leader that is I've been through the fire. I've been tested and I understand where my focus has to be and I'm capable of focus. And that's really how I ran my race and frankly that's that's how I'll run my administration.

[00:09:04]My top goals are make this the best state in the nation on for Oregonians. I want this to be to be the best place to live and that's going to be my filter.

[00:09:12]That's going to be my focus for me to have the opportunity to do that. I have to be disciplined every single day. It's going to be a tough race. It's going to be a bruising race and I am not going to get off. I'm not going to I'm not going to be distracted and I wasn't distracted in the primary and I won't be distracted in the general.

[00:09:44]So the thing that hasn't changed are the things that were broken in 2022.

[00:09:48]Unfortunately, they're still broken today. And Oregonians deserved better than that. We're talking about a governor that had the full force of a trifecta where she appointed almost all of the judges in our court system. She had supermajorities in the legislature and the governor's office and she could not affect change to the benefit of people.

[00:10:10]That's absolute failed leadership. And that's really the thing that now has become so incredibly clear is the issues that we were talking about in 2022. We shouldn't still be talking about today.

[00:10:21]There have been there's been four years to have resolved some of those challenges and instead they've just gotten worse.

[00:10:28]We spoke to the governor early earlier today uh and she said that uh she blamed the war with Iran rising gas prices for the failure of measure 120 uh souring that opinion uh for Oregonians. Why why do you think measure 120 failed?

[00:10:43]>> Measure 120 failed because of failed leadership. That was the governor's proposal. Oregonians opposed it in the legislature. She would have listened to anybody in Salem during the long session of 2025, the special session, all of those things. She would have known, she could have known from listening to the people of this state, they were opposed to that. You know, well, before there was a conflict in Iran, we had among the highest gas prices in the nation. And that has nothing to do with the president of the United States. has everything to do with failed leadership from Tina Cotekch and her allies in Salem that have driven those costs higher and higher and higher based on policies that they've adopted and they've just ignored Oregonians. They're crying for help. You know, you probably reported on it during those sessions that we had thousands of pieces of public testimony written in opposition to to both the original gas tax and the final gas tax that passed with just a tiny percentage of people saying that this is the right thing to do. They could have changed course at that point.

[00:11:46]We were willing partners to be able to say, "Let's work together and come up with an alternative to bridge. We needed a balance of budget. let's bridge that and get to a bipartisan conversation in the future. She was unwilling to do that. She wanted her own proposal. She wanted her own tax. So, this has not absolutely nothing to do with the war in Iran. Well, before that, we all knew anyone that's in public service that was receiving input from the public knew they opposed the gas tax in 2025. They opposed it in the special session. They were going to crush it in the May on the May ballot and that's exactly what happened.

[00:12:20]>> Where do we need to go from here? Yeah, we have we have got to on transportation begin to recognize that that's an agency that has lost trust and it's lost its way. We need the Department of Transportation to have leadership that is committed to recognizing that they waste money, they lose money, they're not accountable, and they're not transparent. We need ODOT as an agency that is responsive to publicly elected officials and the people of this state to first trim the fat, get back to their core mission, and then we can have a conversation about how to move forward because we have to have roads. We have to have strong infrastructure. We're not going to have a an incredible growing economy if we don't have strong infrastructure. So, we need it. And under under my leadership, we have to have a bipartisan solution because as as governor, I will work with a Democrat majority in the legislature to balance budgets and to ensure that these projects get funded. That's an opportunity for all of us to be able to have durable solutions, not just in the Department of Transportation, but across all of these issue sets where we have continued to fail because we've only had one set of people at the table, one set of ideas, one philosophical approach.

[00:13:32]That has not worked for Oregon. that's led to nothing but failures.

[00:13:35]>> Can you share something specific that you can do to work on this funding structural situation? You come into office to plan ODOT without raising tax without tax.

[00:13:46]>> Yeah. My my entire proposal was always to fund ODOT without raising taxes because when I met with the agency and talked with them, I said, "What are you doing that isn't core mission? Is there anything we can trim that wouldn't cut down to the bone that would allow you to continue to maintain, preserve, and preserve these roads? And they already knew what those programs were and came forward with their own proposals for where we could begin to cut, trim the fat, as they say, tighten the belt, all those things. And that's that's possible. And once you achieve that, you have the opportunity to have a kind of a level point to move forward from. And that's really where we should have started. And that's where I will start.

[00:14:27]against2 or how are you?

[00:14:35]>> Yeah, I my strategy is to win this time in but no to be really serious about that question. You know, 2022 was a unique election and it had three people in it as you all remember. It had three candidates that were very wellunded. It wasn't a traditional head-to-head, you know, two-party campaign. Instead, it was it was a campaign that required that I run against Betsy Johnson and run against Tina Cotch. In this election, there's the opportunity to run against a failed governor. This is about Tina Cotch's record. It's about her vision for the future of our state. It's about her unwillingness to respect and listen to Oregonians. That's what this campaign is about. And that is the opportunity that I present to Oregonians is, hey, if you want better, we're going to have to choose it. We're going to have to be willing to work together to get it done.

[00:15:28]And I will deliver on behalf of Oregonians in ways that Tina Cotch has shown based on her own record of failure that she can't.

[00:15:40]>> Thank you.

[00:15:42]>> Oh, yeah. Of course. Um, Oregon hasn't elected a Republican governor in over 40 years. What makes you think this year is going to be different?

[00:15:48]>> It's an It's an election year. That makes it an opportunity. We have got to every single chance that we get engage in this process in a way that we're committed to making things better. That our democracy depends on that. It depends on it depends on this marketplace of ideas where we fight for hearts and minds. What's what makes this year different is that there's clarity for Oregonians. These aren't partisan issues that we're that we're talking about. These are these are bipartisan issues, nonpartisan issues. It doesn't matter what party you are. If you can't afford your rent, if you can't afford food, if you lost your job, that's where we find ourselves today for far too many Oregonians is that they can't stay. They want to stay. They love it here, but they're having to look somewhere else to be able to afford to live. And that is different this time. That is the [music] biggest thing that's different is that these aren't partisan conversations.

[00:16:41]This is this is leadership and this is this is a record of failed leadership.

[00:16:45]That's really what this race is about.

[00:16:48]Thank you guys.

[00:17:02]Yeah, it's been a while.

[00:17:10]>> It's good. It's good.