Danielle Bethell visits La Grande, courts Union County voters before primary

Danielle Bethell brought her governor’s campaign to La Grande with a clear political target in view, Union County voters. In the latest Secretary of State county registration data, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 8,251 to 3,298 in Union County, a 2.5-to-1 edge that helps explain why GOP hopefuls keep showing up in Eastern Oregon as the May 19 primary closes in. The Oregon Republican Party listed her La Grande meet-and-greet for April 10, and Bethell is already on the Republican primary ballot for governor. ([sos.oregon.gov](sos.oregon.gov/blue-book/Pages/state/elections/voter-registration-county.aspx))

Bethell, a Marion County commissioner and former Salem-Keizer Public Schools school board member, has presented herself as a county-level problem solver rather than a Salem insider. Her campaign website describes her as a small-business owner and says she helped secure $12 million for wildfire recovery, backed five straight balanced county budgets and helped lead reform on Oregon’s drug laws. The themes she has pushed on the trail, public safety, housing, local control and economic relief for small businesses and working families, are the same issues she has raised in regional interviews across Southern and Eastern Oregon. ([daniellebethellforgovernor.com](daniellebethellforgovernor.com))

That pitch lands differently in Union County, where the economy is tied to agriculture, forest products, education and government, and where the county board of commissioners, Paul Anderes, Matt Scarfo and Jake Seavert, handles local policy and budget decisions. In practical terms, Bethell’s message points toward a state government that gives local officials more room to solve problems on their own, but it also raises the question of who pays when housing, road funding, wildfire response and public safety fall harder on county budgets. ([sos.oregon.gov](sos.oregon.gov/blue-book/Pages/local/counties/union.aspx))

Bethell enters the final stretch of the primary in a crowded field that includes Christine Drazan, Chris Dudley and Ed Diehl, all scheduled to appear at the Oregon Republican Party’s April 16 debate in Hillsboro. Her campaign also faces outside scrutiny, after the Oregon Government Ethics Commission opened an inquiry reported late last year into allegations tied to her work as a county commissioner and whether she used her office to benefit her children. That combination of debate-stage competition and ethics questions will shape how voters in La Grande and across Eastern Oregon judge her before ballots are cast. ([oregon.gop](oregon.gop/2026/04/four-republican-candidates-confirm-participation-april-16-orp-gubernatorial-debate/))