Three of Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s top potential Republican challengers are set to gather on Saturday for their first candidate forum together ahead of the May primary, with one notable absence.
Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell, the ex-Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley and State Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Scio, will meet in the ballroom of North Portland’s Holiday Inn at the Columbia Riverfront for the 16th Annual Leadership and Activist Conference, hosted by the Tigard-based Western Liberty Network. Alongside the Republican candidates will be Libertarian candidate Matt Rowe, a former mayor of Coquille and previous state chair of Oregon’s Libertarian Party.
The Western Liberty Network describes itself as an organization which “offers training to activists at the grass roots level on how to successfully engage in the democratic process at the local level.” Richard Burke, a former Oregon gubernatorial candidate for the Libertarian Party in 1998 and a member of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, leads the right-leaning group.
Each candidate is expected to deliver an elevator pitch, short introduction, a 10-minute presentation describing their priorities and a closing statement. Angela Todd, a Portland-based interior designer and influencer who hosts the podcast “PDX Real,” will moderate the event. On Instagram, the podcast has described multiple Republican gubernatorial candidates, including David Medina, the Jan. 6 rioter and conservative influencer pardoned by President Donald Trump, as people “challenging the status quo.”
The Western Liberty Network said it plans to include two empty chairs to mark two invited candidates who will not attend. One is for Kotek, who is unlikely to take stances on key issues for Oregonians next to Republican contenders for the governor’s race until after the primary.
Another chair will take the place of state Sen. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, who lost to Kotek by less than 67,000 votes in 2022 and spoke at the conference last year. She declined to attend this time around, according to the network. Sam Herscovitz, a spokesperson for Drazan’s campaign, told the Capital Chronicle that Drazan had a prior commitment.
Among the Republican candidates who will be present on Saturday, Oregonians have so far heard the fewest policy details from Dudley. He came within 23,000 votes of winning the governor’s race in 2010 against Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and announced his new bid for governor on Monday without offering any concrete plans.
On social media, Dudley has recently been featuring the work of the former Gresham employee Kevin Dahlgren, a prominent Portland influencer and critic of the metro area’s homelessness services. In January, Dahlgren pleaded guilty to first-degree theft, aggravated identity theft and first-degree official misconduct. His plea deal agreed to pay back $16,000 dollars to the city of Gresham after he admitted to lying and stealing from the city while working as a homeless services specialist.
The event is expected to draw at least 150 to 200 attendees, according to a press release. While the conference will begin at 9 a.m., the candidate forum is set to start at 4:30 p.m. Oregonians can find more information about the event here on the organization’s website.