The 2022 race for Oregon governor will make state history with women as the candidates for both major parties – who likely will face a third woman running as an unaffiliated the candidate.

Democrat Tina Kotek won the Democratic primary, while Republican Christine Drazan was leading the Republican primary. Betsy Johnson is launching a petition drive to qualify for the November ballot without party affiliation. 

The trio would ensure that no matter who wins, a woman would succeed a woman as governor of Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, could not run due to term limits.

Women were also winning the Democratic primaries for the four congressional seats held by the party. Female candidates also won or led in races for state labor commissioner, the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and the Republican nomination for a congressional seat.

Slow vote counts due to a labor-intensive hand duplication of damaged ballots in Clackamas County slowed the counting of votes in two key congressional races. For the first time, Oregon will count any ballots with a March 17 postmark that arrive in the mail by next Tuesday.

Results in all the races won’t likely be known until the end of the week or early next week. 

As of 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan reported 937,445 ballots had been returned of 2,948,373.

That pegs the voter turnout at 31.8%, slightly above the 2018 turnout, the last non-presidential year primary election in Oregon.

The races as they stood Wednesday afternoon:

Kotek, Drazan top 34 candidates for governor

Kotek, who stepped down as House speaker to run for governor, easily won the Democratic nomination for for governor, with 56% of the vote.

Treasurer Tobias Read conceded to Kotek late Tuesday, having received 32% of the vote. The other 13 candidates on the ballot shared 12% of the vote. He retains his position, but cannot run for re-election in 2024 due to term limits.

Christine Drazan, the former House minority leader who also left the legislature early to run for governor, was leading in the Republican vote.

Unlike the Democratic race, the 19 candidates won small but significant chunks of the vote.

Drazan was receiving 23% of the vote, while former lawmaker and GOP state chair Bob Tiernan was second with 18%. 

Schrader heading for defeat in 5th Congressional District 

U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, was trailing badly in his re-election bid in the 5th Congressional District Democratic primary.

Schrader opponents were jubilant with early returns that showed Terrebone attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner winning 60% of the vote in the primary.

But optimism was tempered by the lack of results from Clackamas County, which makes up 45% of Democratic registration. Schrader lives in the county, though the Clackamas County Democrats were among four county party committees who endorsed McLeod-Skinner.

Progressive Democrats sought to topple the seven-term congressman, who has one of the least liberal voting records in Congress. 

Redistricting radically changed the boundaries of the district, with Schrader losing more than half of his current constituents.

The new 5th district runs from Portland, over the Cascades, to Deschutes County. It has the smallest Democratic voter registration advantage of the six districts in Oregon.

Votes from Clackamas County began to trickle in Wednesday morning, with Schrader winning about 57% in the early county. If the trend continues, it likely will not be enough to offset McLeod-Skinners big leads in other areas of the district.

On the Republican side, former Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the apparent nominee, with 42% of the vote among the five GOP candidates. Bend businessman Jimmy Crumpacker was second with 30% of the vote.

Salinas winning primary in 6th Congressional District 

Rep. Andreas Salinas, D-Lake Oswego, was leading in the Democratic race for the newly created 6th Congressional House District, which has a sizeable Democratic voter registration majority.

Salinas had just under 38% of the vote. Despite $13 million in backing from cryptocurrency interests, newcomer Carrick Flynn received just under 19% of the vote.

A top contentder, Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, D-Woodburn, conceded defeat late Tuesday. 

Mike Erickson of Lake Oswego, who won Republican nominations for a different congressional seat in 2006 and 2008, was leading the GOP race in with 34% of the vote. He fueled his first bid in 14 years by loaning his own campaign $640,000.

Rep. Ron Noble, R-McMinnville, was second with just under 20% of the vote.

Oregon received a sixth congressional seat following the 2020 U.S. Census that showed strong growth in the state over the previous decade. The seat’s boundaries were created by a legislative panel whose leaders included Salinas. It’s the first new congressional seat for the state in 40 years.

Alonso Leon and Noble gambled by not running for re-election to the Legislature. They will leave the legislature when new lawmakers are sworn in next January.

Wyden wins U.S. Senate race, could face Perkins

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, easily won the Democratic primary for the seat he has held since 1996. As of Wednesday afternoon, Wyden had 89% of the vote.

On the Republican side,  Joe Rae Perkins of Albany was leading the GOP primary with 32% of the vote. Darin Harbrick, owner of Harbick’s Country Inn and Harbick’s Country Store in the McKenzie River Valley, was second with 30% of the vote. The slow ballot count in Clackamas County could affect the outcomes.

If Perkins wins the primary, it will be her second race for the U.S. Senate in two years. She won the Republican nomination in 2020. Democratic incumbent Jeff Merkley won with 56% of the vote, while Perkins received 39%.

Perkins’ association with the QAnon conspiracy posed a problem for other Republicans running for office in 2020, with some candidates declining to appear at party events in which she took part.

Hoyle wins big in bid to succeed DeFazio in 4th Congressional District 

Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle was winning 65% of the vote in the Democratic primary for the 4th Congressional District. She was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, who announced last December that he would not seek re-election. Hoyle will face Republican Alek Skarlatos, the lone GOP candidate.

Trio of incumbents win primaries in “safe” congressional districts 

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Beaverton, U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, and U.S. Rep Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, won their party’s primaries for in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd congressional districts, respectively. All three districts have prohibitively large voter majorities of the incumbent’s party.

Stephenson tops BOLI race, but may face Helt in run-off

Portland labor lawyer Christina Stephenson ran up a large edge over her six rivals in the race for the non-partisan position of commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries.

But with 47% of the vote, she’s falling short of the 50% required to skip a run-off in November.

If current trends hold, she would face former Rep. Cheri Helt, R-Bend, who has 19% of the vote, in the general election.

Yamhill County Commissioner Casey Kulla was third with just over 14%.

Johnson gets set for insurgent bid for governor

Along with Kotek and Drazan, the November ballot is likely to have a third key candidate: Former Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose.

She’ll need to submit 24,000 signatures to the Secretary of State to qualify for the ballot without a party affiliation. 

Johnson is seeking to be a moderate that will campaign between Kotek on the left and Drazan on the right. She’s supported by Nike CEO founder Phil Knight, who has contributed $1.75 million to her campaign so far. 

Peter Wong, a reporter for the Oregon Capital Bureau, contributed to this report. The report also includes contributions from the Bend Bulletin, Eastern Oregonian and the Portland Tribune.