Nineteen candidates are vying to become Oregon’s first Republican governor in 35 years. A few have history with unions—stark opposition, or membership. None have union endorsements.
- RAYMOND BALDWIN is a general contractor who lives in Canby. Before his contracting business, Baldwin was a journeyman carpenter with Carpenters Local 1388 from 1970 to 1980. Baldwin also interned in former Gov. Vic Atiyeh’s office – Oregon’s last Republican governor who served in the 1980s.
- BRIDGET BARTON is an editor and publisher living in West Linn. She formerly ran conservative magazine Brainstorm NW.
- CHRISTINE DRAZAN is a former state representative and minority leader of the Oregon House. Like other Republican lawmakers, she’s often voted against bills supported by labor unions, including 2021 bills setting prevailing wage as the union wage and giving teachers unions the right to bargain over class size. She also voiced opposition to a COVID-19 presumption for workers comp.
- BUD PIERCE is an oncologist who lives in Salem. He previously ran for governor in 2016, and on that campaign trail he drew the ire of public employee unions for his plan to substantially cut public sector employment and implement PERS reforms.
- STAN PULLIAM is an insurance executive and mayor of Sandy. He’s a strong critic of Oregon’s COVID-19 response and says he has a record of pro-small-business policies. Pulliam wants to triple the size of the Oregon State Police and deploy state troopers and the Oregon National Guard in Portland.
- BILL SIZEMORE is a general contractor and owns a painting business in Redmond. He’s the highest profile anti-union candidate running for governor and is well-known for battling public employee unions in the 1990s. Sizemore ran the anti-tax Oregon Taxpayers United group that in 2002 landed him with racketeering charges and a court order to pay $2.5 million to OEA and AFT-Oregon.
- MARC THIELMAN is a former school superintendent for Alsea School District, a position he resigned in February amid controversy after the school board voted to defy the statewide mask mandate, a move Thielman supported.
- BOB TIERNAN is a well-known union buster. He’s a management-side labor attorney who specializes in “maintaining a right-to-work non-union workforce” as well as “dealing effectively with union work organizations,” according to his resume. A former president of Grocery Outlet who lives in Lake Oswego, he’s also a former state rep, past chair of the Oregon Republican Party and was chief petitioner for Oregon’s mandatory minimum sentencing law, Measure 11.
