Former Portland Trail Blazer and one-time Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley is actively weighing whether to jump into next year’s race for governor.
The former NBA center and nonprofit founder told The Oregonian/OregonLive Friday that he’s grown frustrated with Oregon’s lack of progress on pressing issues, particularly its poor education scores, high homelessness rates and ailing economic indicators, most pronounced in the Portland area.
“I think we’re at a unique time in Oregon’s history, and I am concerned that if we don’t change our path soon, it gets harder and harder to do,” Dudley said. “Leadership, to me, is a combination of empathy and accountability, and right now, I don’t think we’re doing either.”
No other Republican in recent years has come as close to becoming the governor of Oregon as Dudley did in 2010. That year, he lost in the general election to Democrat John Kitzhaber by just 22,000 votes.
Dudley, 60, has kept a relatively low public profile in the 15 years since his brief foray into politics. He and his wife moved to California in 2012 but still owned a home and regularly visited Oregon for years, he said, before moving to Sisters around 2020.
Dudley first publicly acknowledged that he was considering running for governor in a recent interview with The Oregon Journalism Project. On Friday, he said he is unsure when he will make a decision. In recent days, he’s been talking with potential supporters and mulling it over with his wife.
If Dudley decides to run, he would vie against a Republican primary field that will include Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell and state Sen. Christine Drazan of Canby. The general election would almost certainly present another major challenge — Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, has not announced her campaign but is expected to seek reelection.
Originally from Connecticut and raised in San Diego, Dudley played in the NBA for 16 seasons, including several seasons with the Blazers, before retiring from the league in 2003 and staying in the Portland area. During his playing career, he started a foundation to support children with diabetes.
Soon after entering the 2010 gubernatorial race as a political outsider, Dudley emerged as the leading Republican candidate. He outraised his Republican primary competitors and received key endorsements before winning the primary with 40% of the vote.
Dudley raised nearly $10.5 million that year, compared to $7.4 million raised by Kitzhaber. Dudley’s largest contributions came from national political groups, corporations and business executives, including Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who contributed $400,000.
Dudley reemerged into public view this summer when he joined a coalition of Oregon business leaders urging local officials to make significant investments to help keep the Blazers in Portland. More recently, he spoke at an annual event hosted by the Oregon Republican Party.
“My impression is he’s taking this very seriously,” said Dan Mason, national committeeperson for the Oregon Republican Party and organizer of the event. “I can tell you that the conversation around a potential Chris Dudley run has a lot of excitement from a lot of people that remember how close he came before.”
Drazan, who lost in the 2022 governor’s race to Kotek, is widely seen as the candidate to beat in next year’s Republican primary. She currently has $760,000 in her campaign coffers, state campaign finance records show. Bethell, meanwhile, has about $55,000 on hand.
Kotek has more than $1.6 million on hand.
Although Drazan and Bethell have already announced their bids, Dudley still has time to launch a competitive campaign. In his first run for governor, he didn’t formally declare his candidacy until December 2009, about a week before Christmas.
Dudley acknowledged that any Republican running for governor next year will likely face an uphill battle in Oregon, a state that has not elected a Republican as governor in more than 40 years. But he said he believes many Oregonians are fed up with the status quo and might be interested in a different approach to leadership.
“I’m of the belief that this election needs to be about Oregon, and frankly, if it is, I think there’ll be a change in leadership,” he said. “But if it’s an election where all we do is talk about national issues and debate Trump, I think that’s hard to win, but also counterproductive. It’s not what Oregon needs.”
Bryan Iverson, a longtime Republican campaign consultant, said he’s unsure if Dudley’s platform as an outsider would resonate with voters more than the messaging of other Republican candidates.
“What I’m hearing from Republicans is that they want whoever has the best chance of winning to move forward,” Iverson said. “Whether that’s Dudley or Christine Drazan or Danielle Bethell, we’re waiting for someone to make that case for us.”
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