QuickTake:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan was in Eugene visiting businesses and sat down for a brief interview about this year’s race. 

Republican State Sen. Christine Drazan is running against Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, who is seeking a second term.

The governor’s election this year is a rematch for Drazan and Kotek, who faced off in 2022, when Kate Brown’s exit from the governor’s office left the race wide open.

Drazan and Kotek have a history of working together — and disagreeing — in the Legislature, where Kotek served as House speaker and Drazan, of Canby, was the House minority leader.

Four years later, Drazan is running again. She believes Oregonians unsatisfied with the state’s current status quo — whether for businesses, the lack of affordable housing or overall cost of living — can propel her to victory.

Drazan met briefly with Lookout Eugene-Springfield on Thursday, July 23. Here’s what she had to say. Answers are lightly edited for space and brevity.

Lookout: What brings you to Eugene today?

Drazan: I’ve been doing a couple of tours today, having conversations with businesses about how it’s going. My interest really is to make sure that as I talk to Oregonians about the things that I care about, that I’m a good listener, and that I understand some of the nuances and the details about how these policies affect people.

So for this visit, it’s businesses. Yesterday, I was touring some folks that were doing recovery services and detox. I’m just really trying to look at the issues that affect Oregonians and doing a lot of listening right now. … I’m doing a lot of fact-finding right now. 

What’s your sense of what the lay of the land looks like now compared to the 2022 campaign?

I always say some of the reason it’s so different is I’m different. You go through an experience like that, and you can’t help but be changed by it, and I’m grateful for that. You don’t want to go about your life and stay the same. You want to be changed by your own experiences and what you learn.

And running for office of a state as diverse as Oregon, you have the opportunity to learn a lot. And we all live in our own history and our own experiences, and running for office like this and listening gives the opportunity to open that up again. … I’m different, but Oregonians are too.

The experience of the decriminalization of drugs, the impacts of homelessness, and the lack of progress on these issues that feel like in prior years we would have known for certain that, as Oregon is, we can solve and somehow they have only gotten worse here. … There’s still Oregonians that have compassion and empathy and care, but they’re also done just writing blank checks.

They’re ready to say, “Do something with what I’ve given you, and then we can talk.”

How is that different from what you’re hearing four years ago? What has changed in that message?

Four years ago it was … a little bit of a hangover from COVID. In 2022, people were looking for respect and autonomy, and they wanted to be assured that the government was going to respect their own individual needs and choices for however they look at the world.

They didn’t want to see the government intervene at that level again. … It was a strong libertarian bent, I would say, in 2022. And this year, it does feel like the extent to which everyone is demanding more accountability and more transparency has really been significant.

When people are asking for more accountability, what are the gaps you most frequently hear about?

We’re finding two things that people bring up the most. Public schools, because I think that the statistics on the amount that we spend (versus) what our outcomes look like are now kind of getting out in the environment. People are understanding it.

I think people are (also) beginning to understand the housing-first approach, where it’s housing alone, that the focus is to build the 30% AMI (area median income) multifamily (units)  …  isn’t resulting in people not coming back to the streets.

And what they’re seeing is that experience of the unpredictable nature of how homelessness presents itself is different than it used to be, but that it’s not better. The experience isn’t better. It’s just less predictable.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.