Tina Kotek

Tina Kotek completed her University of Oregon undergraduate degree without student debt, with help from a Pell grant, work study and affordable tuition.¹ She moved from the East Coast to Oregon in 1987.¹ She and her wife, Aimee Kotek Wilson, have a dog; Aimee has worked as a community mental health social worker.¹

Before elected office, Kotek worked as an advocate at Oregon Food Bank and policy director at Children First for Oregon.² First elected to represent North Portland in 2006, she became House speaker in 2013 and served until January 2022.² She was elected governor later that year and took office in January 2023.²

As governor, Kotek signed a 2024 housing package creating a state housing production office and allowing limited expansions of urban growth boundaries.³ She also signed legislation restoring criminal penalties for drug possession while creating treatment deflection programs.⁴ Those changes followed her declaration of a homelessness emergency at the start of her administration.²

Her reelection platform calls for statewide universal preschool, more classroom time and stronger graduation requirements.⁵ She also proposes continued housing investment, more land ready for development and replacing the state's economic development agency with a Department of Commerce.⁵ She supports a moratorium on new data centers and presents a second term as an opportunity to continue her policies on affordability and public services.⁵ She faces Republican Christine Drazan in a rematch of their 2022 contest.⁶