Drazan brings tax-cut message to Baker City lunch discussion

Christine Drazan brought her tax-cut message back to Baker City on Friday as Oregon voters headed deeper into the May 19 primary season, with ballots already mailed April 29 and registration and party-affiliation changes closed April 28. The Republican gubernatorial contender has made affordability the centerpiece of her 2026 campaign, and Baker County is once again part of that map.

Drazan’s campaign says she wants to lower the cost of living by cutting taxes on working families, expanding child care tax credits, eliminating Oregon’s inheritance tax and pushing back on regulations she says drive up gas, utility and food prices. She has also criticized recent transportation tax increases and the decision to put a transportation tax referendum before voters in the May primary, a fight that keeps roads and fuel costs at the front of the affordability debate.

That message lands with particular force in Baker County, where ranchers, retirees and small-business owners all feel price changes quickly. For seniors on fixed incomes, Drazan has said high property taxes can be especially hard to absorb, and her broader pitch ties those local pressures to the state’s larger tax structure. Any move to cut taxes while Oregon is also debating transportation funding puts road maintenance and household bills in the same conversation.

Drazan is one of the leading Republican contenders in a crowded primary field that includes Ed Diehl, Chris Dudley and Danielle Bethell. The former GOP nominee in 2022 is widely seen as one of the strongest chances Republicans have to challenge Gov. Tina Kotek again if she wins the nomination. Her campaign has framed her as a candidate focused on making Oregon a better place to raise a family and start a business, and it has sharpened that argument around the line: “That means cut taxes.”

Baker County has seen Drazan before. In August 2022, she spoke to about 120 people at the Baker County Events Center during her earlier governor’s campaign, and Friday’s lunch discussion showed she is still treating Baker City as a place where tax politics can be tested in public. With ballots already moving through the mail, the race is narrowing to a straightforward question for voters: how far should Oregon go to make life cheaper, and what would that cost in roads, public services and the next state budget?