Comparing the Oregon gubernatorial candidates’ published plans — from a startup perspective

Way back when. Like two decades ago. When I started this blog. The last thing I had on my mind was covering politics. But a lot has changed since those seemingly simpler — albeit overly naive — times. And so now, that’s exactly where I find myself. Carefully considering and sharing my perspectives on politics, initiatives, and candidates with the hopes of providing you — my dearly beloved yet overly busy startup founders — with some CliffsNotes or SparkNotes or Google AI Summary level context for political issues that deserve your attention. Like the 2026 Oregon gubernatorial race.

We’re a little over a month out from returning ballots. Hype is ramping up. Attack ads are unavoidable. And platforms are solidifying.

Ah, politics.

As part of those efforts both Governor Tina Kotek and challenger Christine Drazan have released their own flavors of their respective plans. Kotek’s “Building Oregon’s Future Together” landed September 17. Drazan’s six-part plan has been sitting on her site for a while.

So I thought I would take the opportunity to go through both of those plans. But with a specific lens. Like the perspective of startup founders and the startup community. With the hopes of giving you some grounding before you take the opportunity to dive deeper.

tl;dr Combining both plans would provide a stronger platform for Oregon startups. Neither plan is wholly comprehensive as far as benefits to startups go.

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CAVEAT: I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t intimate that — at least to me — this always kind of feels like listening to teenagers giving speeches about why they deserve to be the next class president. And how they promise to extend lunch breaks. And get better snacks in the vending machines. And more pizza days in the lunchroom. It never ever happens. Because moving those needles is largely beyond their immediate control — or they have to engage with an entire caucus to actually get anything done.

This feels very similar. Granted, it’s not with ill will. It’s aspirational. And visionary. But it’s also highly unlikely to materialize. No matter how well intended the plans are.

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I read both plans the way I read everything: through my incredibly myopic lens of the Oregon startup community, as is my wont. (And by “startup,” I mean early stage companies that have the potential for exponential growth — venture scale sorts of growth — whether or not those founders decide to pursue equity based venture financing or not.

Let’s get into it…

The notable small win

tl;dr Kotek’s plan uses the word “startup.” Drazan’s doesn’t. That’s not a gotcha. It’s simply a tell about the understanding of the types of companies each candidate is looking to serve.

I read the two economic sections side by side. The first thing that jumped out to me wasn’t a policy. It was a word.

You see, I’ve spent decades trying to help elected officials — and frankly anyone else who would listen — that “small business” and “startups” are not synonymous. You know, it’s like the old “Every square is a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square” sort of thing:

Every startup is a small business at some point. But not every small business is a startup.

Kotek’s plan, under a heading called “Jumpstart Innovation and Home-Grown Ideas,” says the state should “support startups, small and local businesses, and Oregon entrepreneurs by leveling the playing field and reducing barriers to second-stage growth.”

Startups get an explicit mention. That’s a seemingly small but ultimately significant language choice. A phrasing that doesn’t conflate startups and small business. That treats them as different entities. And that’s worth noting.

Drazan’s plan, under “Reignite Oregon’s Economy,” says the state should “work for business success by creating correction periods for minor violations and establishing a Small Business Bill of Rights.” I was reading quickly but as far as I could see Drazan’s economic plan does not ever mention the word “startup.”

From my perspective, Kotek is describing a variety of companies. Including a company that’s trying to get exponentially bigger. Drazan is describing a company that’s trying not to get crushed. Those are different — yet equally valuable — perspectives.

Bootstrapping versus scaling

tl;dr Kotek lowers the cost of starting a company and raises the cost of growing one. Drazan does the reverse. Neither is wrong. They optimize opposite ends of the same lifecycle.

Kotek’s plan is friendlier to the day you start. The safety net stuff — the Child Care Infrastructure Fund, a stated pathway toward universal preschool, a defense of the Oregon Health Plan — reads like social policy. And it is.

But if you squint the right way, it’s also startup policy. Because the hardest thing about founding a company isn’t the idea. Or even building the product. It’s walking away from the salary. It’s taking on the personal burden of buying the insurance and saving for retirement (as if!). It’s finding the childcare that gives you time to work — or leave the house. It’s basically anything that lowers the personal risk of making that leap for someone who isn’t already independently wealthy.

That’s a formation lever. Whether or not anyone calls it one.

But the same plan quietly raises the cost of the day you grow. Kotek was the legislative architect of the Corporate Activity Tax — a 0.57% tax on gross receipts over $1 million.

Gross receipts. Not profit.

Which means it lands on exactly the kind of cash burning top line growing intentionally unprofitable startup that venture capital exists to fund. And it lands before that company has made a dollar. So the whole “get users on board and figure out profits later” has a tax burden.

Easier to start. More expensive to scale.

Drazan’s plan is the mirror image. She names CAT reform in her plan: a genuine startup relevant lever, since the CAT is one of the two things most actively punishing a growing company here. She’d veto new tax and fee increases and protect the kicker. That’s a scaling-and-liquidity plan: keep more of what you make as you grow and keep more of what you make when you sell.

But go looking for the formation end and… well you’ll just have to keep looking.

Her answer to healthcare and childcare costs runs through deregulation. Audit the agencies. Cut the rules and fees that raise what providers charge. Which might genuinely lower some costs. But it’s not a cushion. Deregulate the aspects of derisking the leap all you want. It doesn’t pan out if the leap is still only available to a handful of people who can afford to miss a few paychecks.

To be clear, neither of those is the wrong answer. It’s just a partial answer on each side.

A founder actually needs both: a supportive place from which to jump and a lighter tax on the growth and the exit.

Speaking of exits…

The one fight that’s in neither plan

tl;dr QSBS and SB 1507 — the biggest startup policy fight of the year — do not appear in either economic plan.

The single loudest startup-policy argument of the entire year isn’t in either economic plan. Neither one names QSBS. Neither one names SB 1507. The bill that kicked off the conversation a lot of us have been having all year is just… not there, in the platforms these two are running on.

But admittedly, it’s also not a populist issue. It’s more a nuanced thing that folks in the startup community are seeking. If it impacted every Oregonian — and the electeds — we probably wouldn’t be in this mess.

Kotek’s fix does exist. But it lives in the signing letter she attached to SB 1507. Where she promised to work toward a reconnection in the 2027 session. And in her own Prosperity Council’s June report, which recommended reconnecting QSBS, modernizing that semiconductor-only R&D credit, and lifting the CAT threshold from $1 million to $2 million.

Good things, all of them. But a signing letter and a council report are not a campaign platform.

Drazan’s plan is silent on QSBS too. She opposes tax increases as a category. So I would guess she’d sign a fix. But she hasn’t named it. Or prioritized it.

So the biggest lever on this whole list is sitting in the space between what both candidates said and what both candidates left out. Which means it’s still ours to raise.

Okay, but will any of this actually happen?

tl;dr Both plans could fail to deliver for startups. But in opposite ways. Kotek can pass big laws but might not. Drazan might want to and structurally can’t.

Kotek’s problem is not capacity. She’s the longest serving House Speaker in state history. She has actually passed big ugly complicated things: the CAT, Paid Leave Oregon, Oregon Health Plan expansions, the 2023 CHIPS Act… the list goes on and on.

So her risk isn’t whether she’s capable of getting it done. Rather, it’s will she prioritize this effort. Especially when there are a hundred other things pulling at a Democratic governor with a to-do list.

Drazan’s challenge is the exact opposite. Her record is largely a record of stopping things: the 2019 walkouts that helped block the CAT and cap-and-trade. That’s a real skill. And it’s the one that maps cleanly onto her most useful power: the Governor’s veto pen.

A Drazan governorship almost certainly means a Democratic legislature. Which makes any proactive startup ideas — restore QSBS, build a software R&D credit — structurally very hard to pass without reaching across the aisle innumerable times.

But it makes her defensive power quite real. Her likeliest contribution to Oregon startups isn’t passing the fix to SB 1507. It’s blocking the next SB 1507.

One can deliver but might not aim at startups. The other might aim at startups but can’t deliver the proactive stuff. And the class president read is that you probably shouldn’t expect either plan to arrive intact.

So in the long run, it’s not even really much of a “who you should vote for” sort of thing. It’s more of a “who you’d rather vote against.”

So what do you do with it

Now that you have the context, please go read Kotek’s plan. Go read Drazan’s plan. Actually read them. Do your own research. Formulate your own comparisons. Make your own decisions. Share your own analysis. Share it far and wide.

Because here’s the part I do care about. I care about the Oregon startup founders brave enough to take the leap. The early employees brave enough to take the equity over salary. The investors who take a flyer on an unproven concept. Those are the people of whom I am truly enamoured. Not politicians. But this is where we are, currently.

And it takes a village, am I right…?