Editors’ Note: The following lists of points were sourced from thechoice2026.com, a website that unfortunately exhibited technical problems recently and at the time of this post. The additional links provided below work normally. We will continue to compare Kotek and Drazan’s policies in coming weeks.
Republican State Senator Christine Drazan is a fourth-generation Oregonian from Klamath Falls who has served for years in the Oregon legislature. She is now the Republican challenger against Governor Tina Kotek in this November’s midterm election.
Drazan’s media campaign that portrays her as a moderate choice in this era of polarized politics may have contributed to her ranking closely to Kotek in recent polls. Drazan, however, is anything but a uniting, problem-solving, or even moderate choice for Oregon; instead, she simply a Donald Trump loyalist with a record of supporting his destructive whims.
Drazan’s Record
- Christine Drazan supported President Trump’s unlawful use of the Oregon National Guard and deployment of our own military against us [read more].
- She refuses to stand up to his tariff taxes that are raising costs for hard-working Oregon businesses and families [read more].
- Drazan also supports Trump’s cuts to Oregonians’ healthcare [read more] and even sponsored a bill that could jail abortion providers [see overview].
- She hasn’t stood up to Trump in Salem, and if she becomes Governor, there’s every reason to believe she’ll continue standing with Trump for years to come.
Issues: Kotek vs. Drazan
- Kotek wants to expand affordable healthcare; Drazan wants to cut healthcare.
- Kotek wants to protect food assistance; Drazan wants to cut food assistance.
- Kotek wants to protect vote by mail; Drazan wants to ban vote by mail.
- Kotek wants to protect abortion access; Drazan wants to ban abortion access.
- Kotek wants to protect our communities; Drazan wants Trump to have his way with deploying the National Guard against citizens of Oregon as well as expand the powers of ICE.
- Kotek favors more worker protections; Drazan wants fewer worker protections.
- Kotek wants to stop price gouging; Drazan wants to allow price gouging.
- Kotek wants to expand access to preschool; Drazan wants to cut access to preschool.
- Kotek wants data centers to pay their fair share; Drazan wants to pass their costs on to us.
See also:
Hi COIN! Good work giving us talking points to help Gov. Kotek’s campaign. I wanted to share some points re the candidate’s data center positions which I think you should include in your list since it could become a key issue for on the fence voters. First, here is a good summary from KATU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlsdBEk28Ow Notice that Drazan makes a sweeping and unfounded Trumpian claim re executive power, claiming that Kotek should simply impose a moratorium herself. It’s true that the Gov. does not have the power to impose a moratorium, the legislature needs to act. Even in the case of NY and Gov. Hochul, her NY moratorium is by executive order to create a task force and set up laws, etc. but is not a state law. Anyway, notice how Drazan dismisses reality so casually (saying she should just ‘do it’) while the Gov. is trying to move toward a real solution by supporting a new bill proposing a 3-year moratorium. Also, Drazan is Trumper who probably openly supported the OBBBA (big ugly bill) which is directly responsible for the huge increase in data center growth since last year (through massive tax subsidies and other incentives at Sec 70421 of the bill. See this great video of Rep. McGovern explaining it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72BrU7D_HCY ) Thanks!
Ginny