🚨 ICYMI: Recently, Christine Drazan proposed a constitutional amendment to protect hunting, fishing, and farming in Oregon. After the threat posed by IP-28, we cannot allow any of our rights to be left to chance. I’m proud to stand with her in this fight!
Oregon Governor 2026: the ads, and who's paying for them
Tina Kotek (Democrat), Christine Drazan (Republican) and Brett Smith (Green) are the candidates for governor of Oregon in the November 3, 2026 general election. Tina Kotek is the incumbent. Semblen has analyzed 52 ads in this race; 29 used at least one manipulation technique, most often loaded language and appeal to prejudice.
Tina Kotek (DEM, incumbent), Christine Drazan (REP), Brett Smith (GRE). On the ballot as listed by Ballotpedia. 52 ads analyzed, 29 with at least one technique in the copy. Newest first. The paid-for-by line is the advertiser's own filing. Updated 2026-10-08. 1 ad from other advertisers shown separately below.
Findings
As of 2026-10-08. Counts are of distinct ads; the same text run many times is one ad.
- Ads analyzed
- 52 (Meta 51, YouTube 1) · started running between 2025-11-05 and 2026-10-08
- With at least one technique
- 29 of 52 (56%)
- Most common techniques
- Loaded Language · 18 adsAppeal to Prejudice · 16 adsGlittering Generalities · 12 ads
- Meta
- 29 of 51 (57%) flagged · Loaded Language (18), Appeal to Prejudice (16), Glittering Generalities (12)
- YouTube
- 0 of 1 flagged
- Reported Meta spend
- $421,600–529,396 on all ads, $238,400–295,049 on flagged ads · Meta reports ranges; these are the sums of their ends
- Example
- “mobilized troops against our community” — Loaded Language, paid for by FRIENDS OF TINA KOTEK, PAC ID 4792 · the flagged ad with the highest reported spend that shows the most common technique
Embed this race on your site
A small box with these findings and the newest ads, updated as new ads are analyzed. Free for newsrooms, blogs and campaigns alike; it links back here.
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An email when new ads come in from either side or the outside groups: the techniques, the words doing the work, and who paid. And each debate's analysis the morning after. One-click unsubscribe.
Semblen LLC · 5900 Balcones Drive STE 100, Austin, TX 78731
Who is running these ads
By sponsor (10)
| Paid for by | Ads | With at least one technique | Most common |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friends of Tina Kotek | 26 | 9 of 26 (35%) | Appeal to Fear (6), Appeal to Prejudice (5), Loaded Language (5) |
| Friends of Christine Drazan | 14 | 13 of 14 (93%) | Glittering Generalities (7), Loaded Language (7), Appeal to Prejudice (6) |
| FRIENDS OF TINA KOTEK, PAC ID 4792 | 3 | 2 of 3 | Appeal to Prejudice (2), Exaggeration/Hyperbole (1), Glittering Generalities (1) |
| OREGON RIGHT TO LIFE | 3 | 2 of 3 | Appeal to Fear (2), Black-and-White Fallacy (2), Exaggeration/Hyperbole (2) |
| Courtney Bangs PAC | 1 | 1 of 1 | Appeal to Prejudice (1), Loaded Language (1), Name Calling (1) |
| Joshua for Gresham | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| Oregon Republican Party | 1 | 1 of 1 | Loaded Language (1), Scapegoating (1) |
| The Kodel Group LLC | 1 | 1 of 1 | Appeal to Prejudice (1), Bandwagon Appeal (1), Loaded Language (1) |
| Tina for Oregon | 1 | 0 of 1 | |
| Tracy Cramer PAC | 1 | 0 of 1 |
Decide what counts
Not everyone would call every technique manipulation. Untick the ones you'd call ordinary persuasion and the count updates.
56% of the 52 ads here use at least one of the techniques ticked below (29 ads).
- Words picked for the feeling, not the facts. More on loaded language, with examples →
- Playing on dislike of a group. More on appeal to prejudice, with examples →
- Feel-good words with no concrete meaning. More on glittering generalities, with examples →
- Making you afraid so you stop weighing the facts. More on appeal to fear, with examples →
- Only two choices when there are more. More on black-and-white fallacy, with examples →
- A label in place of an argument. More on name calling, with examples →
- Only the facts that help one side. More on card stacking, with examples →
- Pressure to act before you think. More on false urgency, with examples →
- Blowing something up past what is true. More on exaggeration/hyperbole, with examples →
- "everyone's doing it" in place of a reason. More on bandwagon appeal, with examples →
- Blaming one group for a complex problem. More on scapegoating, with examples →
- Saying it again until it sticks. More on repetition, with examples →
- A catchy phrase in place of an argument.
Leaving out the softer ones (loaded language, glittering generalities, slogans, exaggeration, repetition): 50% of ads.
The words doing the work
The words that show up most in phrases our model flagged as loaded language or name calling in this race's ads, by number of ads.
- abortion in 3 ads · e.g. “celebrate abortion by establishing Abortion Providers Appreciation Day”, “celebrate abortion”
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Money in this race
Candidates for governor report their fundraising to Oregon's state campaign-finance office, not the FEC. This page doesn't cover those reports yet, so it shows no money figures.
The ads
52 ads, newest first. Video transcripts are shown as the model read them, without caption cues like [music].
Showing the 1 ad paid for by Tracy Cramer PAC. Show all 52 ads
Follow the Oregon Governor race
An email when new ads come in from either side or the outside groups: the techniques, the words doing the work, and who paid. And each debate's analysis the morning after. One-click unsubscribe.
Semblen LLC · 5900 Balcones Drive STE 100, Austin, TX 78731
Other advertisers
Paid posts that ran in OR and name a candidate, from advertisers that aren't part of this race: news-style pages, campaigns for other offices, and others. They're shown here for completeness and not counted with the ads above. We show the same technique analysis; their claims are not checked.
Yunker For State Rep: campaign for another office
Who is Susan Fischer-Maki? Susan Fischer-Maki has spent decades advancing progressive causes in Oregon politics. She has aligned herself with groups that have a seat at the table with Governor Tina Kotek. She supports the state’s decision to allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports. See below where she stands on other progressive issues affecting Oregonians, along with Democrats’ record on so many issues that are holding Oregon back. Don’t be fooled into thinking that most of her life hasn’t been political. Josephine County voters deserve to know the truth about where she stands on the issues.
What this page is
- An ad is on this page because its own "Paid for by" line is a campaign in this race; or it ran mostly in OR and names a nominee for governor — unless its sponsor is a campaign for some other office (a U.S. Senate or House campaign included), or it also names OR's Senate nominees, in which case it is on the Senate race's page. Ads from outside groups appear alongside the campaigns' own.
- The candidates are the ones certified for the November ballot, from the source linked at the top. Governors are state offices, so there are no FEC filings behind this page: no money figures, and outside groups are placed on a side only when they are a campaign or a party committee.
- Campaigns run one text as many separate ads. Identical text from the same sponsor is one card here, marked with its number of variants.
- A technique is a specific manipulative move in the wording, found by our model and explained in one line. It is not a claim that the ad is false.
- Claims are checked when a reader asks: press "Check this ad's claims" on a card. The check runs once and its result is shown to everyone afterwards. The ten ads with the most money behind them in each race are checked ahead of time.
- Claim verdicts say what the cited sources say. A verdict that an ad is wrong or misleading is shown only when it cites an established fact-checker or an institutional record — Congress, a federal agency, a court — and its confidence is not low; a weaker one is not shown at all. Each verdict shows what it rests on and how confident it is. If we got one wrong, press Disagree: a verdict that readers dispute and no one defends comes down.
- Video ads come from the campaigns' own YouTube channels; the transcript is analyzed. Meta ads are analyzed on their text; their video and images are not, yet.