Crime Wave Gives the GOP a Chance in Oregon Governor’s Race

Ms. Guzman’s situation may help explain the strange race to become Oregon’s next governor. The Beaver State is reliably Democratic. It hasn’t voted for a Republican governor since 1982, or for president since 1984. In 2020,

Joe Biden

defeated

Donald Trump

here by 16 points. But now the left in Oregon is eating its own, giving Republican

Christine Drazan

a shot at defeating Democratic nominee

Tina Kotek.

The RealClearPolitics poll average has Ms. Drazan in the lead, 37% to 34%, with independent candidate

Betsy Johnson

picking up 16%. All three women are former state legislators.

In an Oct. 10 interview at her Portland office, festooned with old campaign buttons and large framed pictures of the likes of

Bill Clinton,

Ms. Kotek, 56, was careful not to speak ill of the far left. The closest she came was insisting that radicals don’t care for her because she’s a moderate: “I definitely think that if you talk to folks who are more on the political left, that I’m probably too mainstream.” An aide at a Kotek campaign event, asking not to be identified, agreed with this assessment. Oregon progressives will vote for Ms. Kotek, he said, only because she would do the “least worse” as governor. Pantsuited with close-cropped hair, Ms. Kotek tags her Republican opponents for “extreme views” that are “not aligned with where Oregonians want their state to be.”

Ms. Kotek’s inability to condemn the far left puts her at a disadvantage in a race focused almost exclusively on crime. Portland, more than three times the size of Oregon’s second-largest city, is in the middle of a well-documented crime wave. Federal Bureau of Investigation data show that violent crime in 2021 spiked 38% from the year before, far outpacing the national trend. The city’s homicide rate has risen 207% since 2019. Homelessness and drug use make things worse: Portland has an estimated 5,200 people on the streets, and since voters passed Measure 110, a 2020 state initiative decriminalizing personal possession of hard drugs, Oregon has seen overdose deaths increase by 20%.

Ms. Kotek gives no convincing answers to questions about crime, defaulting to talk about gun control and drug treatment. But during her own interview, Ms. Drazan, 50, wouldn’t let the issue go. “I did a ride-along with the East precinct,” she said. “The stack of calls they had to respond to was massive. And some of them were very, very serious calls.” The police were so overwhelmed, she noted, that it sometimes took them as long as 90 minutes to respond. Crime is “out of control in Portland,” she said, and the only cure is to stop coddling leftist extremists. With styled hair and makeup, Ms. Drazan presents herself as a suburban mom, concerned most of all with safety.

The independent, Ms. Johnson, 71, agrees with Ms. Drazan that the key issue is crime. “You’re taking your life in your own hands to walk downtown.” Once a prominent Democratic figure in the state Legislature, the eccentric Ms. Johnson is the spoiler in the governor’s race, although no one is certain which campaign she will spoil. Ms. Johnson has raised $16 million, more than either major-party nominee, much of it from

Nike

founder

Phil Knight

(who has recently begun supporting Ms. Drazan as well).

Ms. Johnson’s signature look is oversized orange glasses, reaching down her cheeks and above her eyebrows. A framed poster in her downtown office is of the “bat signal,” used by Gotham City to call for Batman’s help, only instead of a stylized bat it’s in the shape of Ms. Johnson’s glasses. “There are only two candidates in this race that represent change,” Ms. Johnson said. “I think my change is more synchronous with the citizens of Oregon than what Ms. Drazan is offering.” Ms. Johnson tries to position herself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative. She served on the board of Planned Parenthood and calls herself “very pro-choice.” Nonetheless, she said, “People are hungry for a change. Tina Kotek represents the status quo.”

The war of the left on the left may bring Oregon its first Republican governor since the 1980s. A typical skirmish occurred at an Oct. 12 online town hall, with a Portland police official and members of the city’s Democrat-dominated Independent Police Review appearing helpless as far-left activists screamed obscenities at them and accused them of white supremacy, misogyny and capitalism.

President Biden visited Portland over the weekend, perhaps in recognition of the peril Democrats face in Oregon. He ate ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins and touted his record at a fundraiser for Ms. Kotek. “We should be funding police more, not less,” he said. On

Twitter,

antifa-linked accounts mused about infiltrating his hotel.

It isn’t clear how Mr. Biden’s stumping for the Democrats helps the likes of Ms. Guzman at the Bison Coffeehouse or any other Oregonian affected by the city’s disorder. Two people were shot in Portland while the president was en route to the city. No arrests were made, and no suspects have been reported.

Ms. Bottum is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.