When was the last time Oregon had a Republican governor?

Will we ever see one again?

Conservative-minded Oregonians might be curious to know the last time Oregon had a Republican governor. For those 37 years and younger, they might wonder if Oregon ever had a Republican governor considering the last year a Republican served in the office was the first 12 days of 1987.

The last Republican governor for Oregon was Gov. Victor G. Atiyeh who served two terms from January 8, 1979 — January 12, 1987. Victor was born on February 20, 1923, which means he was 55 when he first became governor and 63 when he left. Victor passed away at the age of 91 years old on July 20, 2014.

In all the years since he left as Oregon’s governor until he passed, he never saw another Republican governor serve his home state again. Even until now in 2024, we have yet to see any other political party besides the Democratic Party as the governor of Oregon — that means we’ve had a Democrat as governor for 37 years consecutively.

Overall, since 1859, Oregon has had 38 different governors, 17 Democratic, 20 Republican, and 1 Independent. Oregon has been a State in the Union for 165 years so far and the power has been fairly evenly distributed, yet the last 5 governors have been Democrats for 37 years, which is the longest time one party has been the governor consecutively, even though the Republicans did have 6 governors in a row from 1939–1957 (18 years).

Looking at the demographics of Oregon, the large cities have a vast majority of Democrat voters and the vast majority of the state’s population, so it would seem the even split of Oregon’s governorship is a thing of the past and the future is going to be dominated by Democratic leadership for many decades to come.

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