Well, it's the big day after the
big primary election in Oregon,
and hopefully you're as fascinated
by politics as I am because we
are going to take a deep dive.
Earlier today I got a chance to talk
through the governor's race a bit
with two of the sharpest political
folks I know, Lynn Bergstein,
a political consultant who often works
with Democrats and Rebecca Tweed,
a political consultant who
often works with Republicans.
They have great insights into what
the numbers from last night tell us,
and where things go.
From here,
my first question is what surprised you?
I was not surprised by the outcome
of the gubernatorial primaries.
For, you know,
Tina Kotek and Christine Graysen.
I was surprised on the Republican side.
How high the next runner up came,
Bob Tiernan and how some of the other
races did not get as much support.
But I think it's exactly what
we anticipated, you know,
going into the general with three
really strong female candidates and
a really interesting campaign. Watch
and learn. What about you?
Were there any surprises?
Well, I think the the difference in
the in the race between Kotek and Reed
was interesting. This the spread.
I think that you have to consider it
a bit of a blowout and I don't think
a lot of people were expecting that.
I think we have to remember that these
were primary voters and primary voters are
different than general election voters.
They have a different profile and they
come ask looking for different things.
So primary voters and the democratic
side came in looking for.
I think at a progressive. Agenda.
They rewarded particularly progressive
women candidates in this race.
Tina Kotek for a record of
accomplishment on the Republican side,
Rebecca can explain what Republican
primary voters were looking for,
but it seemed to me that they
were somewhat fragmented amongst
the angry and loud voters.
And there was and the remainder group
consolidated around Christine Dreisen,
with about the 2025%.
So you wind up having.
A result which is which is kind
of consistent to where primary
voters are and may not tell us an
awful lot about what the general
election is going to look like.
And what about that? Rebecca, what were
Republican voters looking for? Well,
I think Christine stood out because
she ran a campaign and focused
on the fact that she would be
the best candidate in November.
You didn't hear that from a
lot of the other candidates,
and I think the lens point you know,
running a campaign to the primary
and who's coming out to vote.
There versus coming out in November.
You need to be able to mention or or
reach your base and message to your base,
but also tell people you can count on me.
Here's how this is going to go.
I've worked against them before.
I have a proven track record and
and in the primary you're trying
to choose somebody that can be the
winning candidate in November,
and I think Christine was able to
distinguish herself from the other
candidates who were just running on
message and able to point to that that
credibility and history that she has.
But she's going to have a tough go against.
China Cotek and Betsey Johnson.
Absolutely
so the morning after win like this,
what's it like in the campaign?
What are you talking about?
What's the strategy now? Well, the first
strategy would be to identify you
know all of the potential donors that
you can bring to your side and that
becomes particularly important in this
campaign because Betsy Johnson has
raised so much money from you know,
the traditional you know,
strong Republican contributors.
It's what's out there.
And how can I get that money
so that we can start building?
Their campaign to go forward,
particularly in in Christines you
know position having run against these
women or worked against these women
before trying to distinguish what her
voting record has been to theirs?
And what about you?
What do you think it's like for
the campaign in the morning?
After? What are they focusing on?
First thing you're doing, I think,
is a consolidating your vote,
so you basically,
if you're Christine Dreisen,
you guys say, Gee, I got 25% of the
eligible votes in my bucket and I
gotta go figure out a way to kind of.
Unite that group in order to be able to
have a base to then kind of launch with.
Same thing with the flip
side there with Tina Kotek.
She's got a consolidate the base and kind
of keep those people together with her.
She thinks it's a winning coalition
and so she wants to make sure that
that group of people stays with her.
The next step is to begin to spin out.
As Rebecca said quite eloquently,
the narrative that kind of makes
sense for your why you appeal to the
broader amount of Oregon voters.
With Dreisen now the projected
winner of the Republican primary,
Oregon has made history.
Three women are running
for governor in November.
Oregon hasn't even had two women running
for governor from major political parties.
And now we have three.
We talked with Multnomah County
Chair Deborah Kafoury about what
this means for women in politics.
The fact that we have women in so many high
positions of power in Oregon, you know,
we have a Secretary of State who's a woman.
We have a woman, Supreme Court Justice.
We have in Washington,
Multnomah County, we have.
We have all five of our county
commissioners are women.
Clackamas County Chair,
Washington County chair, all women.
It's not.
It's not by accident and I know
that it's taken years and years and
years of work on behalf of women
all over our state to encourage to
support to grow women candidates
to be able to get to this point
where they could run for governor.
And now we have three women who hopefully
will be in in the runoff in November.
I think that the reason that you're
seeing 3 candidates for governor
from three different parties.
Helping women is because so many of the
issues that we're talking about today
are ones that women know very well.
They have a lot of experience in.
They have a lot of opinions about,
and they know how to make things happen.
So whether you're talking about climate
change or whether you're talking about
the lack of childcare in our community,
whether you're talking about housing or
you're talking about abortion rights,
women are deeply familiar with
all of these issues and and they
want their voice heard.
Mother Gretchen Kafoury was a
trailblazer in women in four
women in Oregon politics.
She served in the State House,
Multnomah County Commission,
and Portland City Council.
She also helped found the
Oregon chapter of the National
Organization for Women.
I think about about my mother,
who and how she would have reacted
to this to this event she 50 years
ago was standing in front of the
city club in downtown Portland
with the rolling pin in her hand,
protesting the fact that women
were not allowed in and because.
She wanted women to be in the room
when it happened and now no matter how
the election turns out in November,
we will have another woman in
the room where it happens.