Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-15-26_FRIDAY_7AM_2

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Podcast of GOP Candidate Chris Dudley on the Bill Meyer Show from KMED 5/15/26

I'm Steve from Sky Park Insurance, and I'm on KMED. 736 at KMED, Friday the 15th, and we got a few days before they officially start counting the votes. What are the people wanting to be your GOP, gubernatorial candidate of choice? Chris Dudley, Chris, welcome back. Good to have you on. And by the way, Chris, I appreciate you sitting down. I was joking with people that Chris is his tall sitting down as I am when he's standing up. That's just the nature of having been a pro basketball player, 6, 7.

By the way, are you shrinking over time? Well, I'm actually 6'10. Oh, you're 6'10? Yes, so even, so don't feel bad. Okay. No, I feel even worse now, sitting now. But in all seriousness, it's a, it's really interesting. It's the battle of the polls right now seems to be driving the GOP-Generatorial news cycle here.

Yesterday, there is a poll which came out, and I think this was talked about on KSLF with one of the air personalities there, that is. It's a neck-and-neck GOP race between Drezen and Ed Deal, 40 and 37 percent within the margin of error. You have a poll out that shows, though, that you win the actual election, or at least are competitive against Tina Kotech. Tell me what you're saying. Well, I think that first poll, you have to consider the source on that. It's just not a credible. That's not a real deal.

Well, I talked with Ed yesterday. He says it's not from him. Well, wherever it's from, it's an online. It says on the actual poll, it says, don't use, take this credibly because it's online. It's an opt-in. It's about, anyway, it's not a serious. It's not a serious.

It's not a serious poll. Yes. Okay. It's not a, it's not a serious poll. But anyway, the, yeah, the big news was yesterday or Tuesday, the poll came out or went, I'm sorry, Wednesday. I'm getting my dad's mixed up. that I'm beating Governor Kotech head-to-head, which to me is what really, really matters.

I mean, obviously, you have to get through the primary, but that I'm the only Republican candidate that beats her on a head-to-head, and I'm up by four points. And it's not, to me, it's nothing new. We always felt that, always knew that if, if, and we would talk about that, that if you, as a Republican, if you want to make changes in the state, you have to win. and therefore let's have a candidate that can win the general election. And I think just going, you know, I've had the highest vote percentage of any Republican in the last, since 1982, when I ran in 2010, came 20,000 votes from beating a very, somebody who was very popular, and this governor is not popular. So I did not find it surprising at all.

And it's something we want to magnify and take advantage of. And let's hopefully able to earn everybody's vote in this primary and then go forward and do what really matters. which is to win in general election. I'm tired of the protest votes. I don't want another. We need to win this election. How close did you come last time around? It was 20,000 votes.

It was, give the sports analogy that we lost in double overtime. They thought we had it won on Tuesday and lost on Thursday. And it was against somebody who ended up winning four elections. That we, it was incredibly close. And you have to have the ability to win in Oregon. You have to have the ability to be able to resonate across. lines and resonate in the Tri-County area in Portland. And it's something I was able to do then and we'll be able to do now.

Okay. Ed Deal, all enough, just text me. I think his ears are burning. I guess. Okay. And he says, what Dudley said is not true. It was not an opt-in poll. It was an independent scientific poll.

He was, that you were talking about another survey that was done several weeks ago. Oh, well, I just, whatever I got said. But take it for what it's worth. If you, I mean, I don't want to waste time on the polls. Well, obviously, this poll that you're talking about, though, is one from today, though, isn't it? Oh, yeah. That's one that you. Oh, yeah.

The one we did, yes, yes. You paid for this poll, this poll, though, right? Yes, we did. It's the same poll, Hoffman, which is credible, which has done the ones that the Oregonian hires. And so we wanted to get independent, somebody that it's, the highest standard out there to do this poll, to show what we already knew. Yeah. Did this poll that you do, I don't have the results of the poll in front of me, okay?

Yes. Did this also include other candidates other than you? Drodson. And she was tied, and we were up four. You're up four? Okay, all right. Yeah, and we were the only ones that showed that we could win in general election. Chris, a major criticism of your campaign,

that has come in, I don't know if it's fair or not, that's what I wanted to ask you, you're here, and so now's the time. That you've been trying to have it both sides, both ways, on the pro-life or pro-choice issue here. And it's a big deal in the Republican primary especially. And there are challenges, of course, when you're running statewide. So what is the truth? Because the story is that last year, Willamette Week, you had an interview in which you had talked about. Well, I can tell you. So this is, I don't know why this has become a story.

Well, I do know why. It's the, the ugly side of politics where people are, well, send out things. And so my, Chris, it's a litmus chat. No, but my position's been, my position's been clear since going back to 2010, and which is that personally, I'm pro-life. But I don't think government should make those decisions. I think family should.

And that's the way I've been, just like I don't think government should mandate vaccines. I want those decisions made by those personal decisions made by families. I am opposed to a term abortion, and I've been consistent in this forever. And it shouldn't be, to me, this is such a personal decision for people. And by the way, all the governor, all the candidates have said that as governor, they won't make any changes. So what's the, that's kind of where we are because as governor, you can't make changes, unilaterally. And so that's, I've been 100% consistent on this topic throughout. What is your plan if, you know, if you are elected and then you do become governor, if you do become governor, how do you work change through what will be most likely an openly hostile legislature?

It may not be a super majority. We don't know how things are going to go this fall. But as it is right now, even with the Republicans and the minority, they've had much different, they've had a lot of difficulty getting. anything other than, you know, breaking a few things and blocking some legislation. Yeah, no, exactly. Well, great question. And first of all, we got to get Brad Hicks elected down here. And we have to change, get out of that super minority.

And that's something that I think is Republican. And this is why we need change. This is why we need somebody from the outside coming in. I think coming in from the outside and having a governor that has a business background, we haven't had that in over 40 years. And I believe that shows. But as governor, I will have come. in and with a mandate in that I'll be very clear on what the issues are I'm running on with

education, the economy, safety, those core issues. And then you come in and you have the power of the pen and says, I'm going to veto anything that I don't agree with. And so that immediately starts the dialogue of having to work together. And then, you know, I'll go in there and I'll say, I dare you to fight for the status quo to my opponents, where we're ranked 50th for fourth grade education on a demographic basis, where we're ranked 47. in job creation, where we're number one in addiction and number one in mental illness. Portland's ranked 80th out of 81 city. You can't make these numbers up.

And so I think there's going to be a – and there's such a need. To me, Oregon is at a tipping point. We have to have people who come to the table and say, we have to have serious solutions for these serious problems. We are at a point where we can't keep going with the same status quo. We can't – Salem's problems will not be solved by somebody from Salem. We need somebody with the outside perspective who can bring people together to address these serious issues. Yeah.

How long have you been back in Oregon? 29. Well, and I would argue not completely never left. We've had a house here the entire time. I had a foundation here. But you were living in 30 years in business in Beaverton had my financial services business. So it was back and forth. My family and I went down to say, I followed after the 2010.

election, my wife and I made the decision that I would not run again until the kids were out of high school. It can be tough on a family. And then my wife had a job opportunity. It was my turn to follow her lead. She had followed me throughout my sports career and business and running for governor. And so we'd always had a house in central Oregon and came back permanently. And I don't know it was 2019, 20, 20, something. Okay. Something like that. And so what makes it different other in the fact that your kids are out of school. What makes this race different and winnable in your view? Well, I think, and I didn't do this because I was trying to pick which race to go,

it was really about just the idea. And I'd been involved in Oregon with Portland, with the Blazers, with different things going on and just saw where we were. And my kids are six-generation Oregonians, and we're eventually going to have seventh-generation Oregonians. And the idea of what are we leaving the next generation? And it really pains me when you talk about where we are in education, where you're in the 50th or fourth grade, where we are in the economy. The whole idea of, to me, so many of, and what's happening in Portland, where it's literally on an economic doom loop right now, it's, to me, that's such self-inflicted wounds that we have such a great state here that we need to turn it around.

And I felt like we needed somebody from the outside. I don't see anybody, frankly, on either side the aisle who are running for office, running for the governor's race, who can bring people together. And that's what we need right now. Now, being an outsider has its appeals. It also has its challenges, I think, too. So how do you end up grabbing the mechanism of the state administrators, the administrative state of Oregon, as an example?

You'd be the superintendent of public instruction essentially is what you would be. Yes. But you've never worked within that structure at all. and how do you approach this? It's like, well, think of President Trump first term, you know, in which he had not done this before, and I think it showed in some ways. Yeah, well, and I think it's in, to me, I think it's advanced coming in. I think when you have, at this point, we need an executive leadership, not another legislator.

And I think what you've seen with the partisan politics on both sides, it's not effective. And yes, we've had people there who've had years and years of experience. And yet we're 50. Dead. And 50th. Dead last in the nation. So you cannot argue that what having all this experience has been good. In fact, you would argue the counter.

And I think coming in and being able to bring people in from the outside is actually an advantage coming in with fresh eyes. And having a business experience, understanding how things run, having exactly. executive leadership being the ability to bring people together to me as a real advantage that's needed right now, not another partisan career politician. All right. Talking with Chris Dudley this morning. If you wanted to ask a question or two, we'll try to squeeze some in 7705633 on the Bill Myers Show. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft, but that's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity,

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and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Chris Dudley, running for governor. And we're getting down to the last few days here. And Logan, I gave you a bite here. A question or comment for Chris. Go ahead. Oh, I just wanted to thank Mr. Dudley here for his candid answer about the pro-life question.

You know, I believe it was T.J. For guys who don't know, that's Thomas Jefferson that first said. One of the main purposes and foundations of government is to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. So I just wanted to thank you that you made it very clear that that's not the stance you'll take for the lives of the unborn. It is what it is, but I want to make sure people heard what you said that it shouldn't be the government's choice to protect the unborn lives of children that they're being sacrificed and murdered throughout our state at a multiple rate. Okay, I will let, I will let, you want to respond to Logan's concern there?

Yeah, Logan, and as I've said, personally, I am pro-life personally, and I believe strongly in that. I've just said as government, that's not the role I'm looking for. And frankly, all the other candidates have said the exact same thing, that they're not going to change it as governor. And they can't. And it's going to be a vote on the people. So, no, I appreciate your concern. As a man of faith, that's, I understand where you're coming from. and but yeah I've been pretty clear on that from from day one all right holly you are on with

chris dudley go ahead first of all polls are driving me crazy because they're speaking all over the place and it's hard to tell anything from those polls because the samples are small they're individually paid for their you know and people tend to be a little fuzzy on how they describe what their polls are but on the pro-life issue i really have a concern of that because it's not just the moral implication, which I think, you know, we all understand the moral implication, particularly those who are conservative. But in our state, we allow people to come from other states, come to our state, and get an abortion which we pay for. And so it's also a fiscal problem in addition to the moral problem. How do you suggest that we're going to handle that?

because we should not be a tourist destination for the abortion industry. If, you know, certainly I'm pro-life, and I don't agree with having it at all, but how would we handle that from the fiscal standpoint? Well, I think that's, you're right, and we should not be a tourist state for abortion, and I agree with you. And I would work to not have that be the case. And again, it's something that I want to promote adoption. I want to promote life. I don't want to do everything we can to promote the culture, but promote families.

And I don't think we do enough of that in our state. And it's something that's going to be critically important going forward as governor. All right. What about the, essentially, we are also a transgender surgery destination resort, if you want to call it that. and as governor, is that anything which is on your mind? Well, and I believe in parental notification. I believe for the parents to make decisions.

I believe that we, you know, I've had a, I've been pretty clear about this. I've had a commercial that's aired talking about this where I don't think biological males should play in women's sports. And that's something I've been very outspoken about. And I do think we've gotten to a place where it just doesn't, a lot of what we're doing, and it doesn't make sense. And that's why I've been so outspoken about it and talking about that in sports, you want women just to be able to play women's sports and not allow biological males to do so. Otherwise, it doesn't.

And to me, it's a matter of fairness and frankly of safety. And that's one thing. But what role should the state of Oregon's either, say, Oregon Health Agency, the Oregon Health Authority, rather, or just the Oregon Department of Education, What should their role be as far as counseling and or conditioning? Because that has been a concern of many listeners. Amy, it's one thing to have the dude in the dress playing against the girls. Okay?

We get that. That's one thing. But the fact that it seems to be so much part of the educational mother's milk, what would you do or what could you do as governor? Well, I've been very outspoken about education, that it's a top area that we have to get back, to teaching the fundamentals and get away from the other areas. I don't like we have to focus. I don't like what's happening in our schools in many areas.

I was just talking with someone in central Oregon about this, where 11-year-olds are being taught about different ways of having sex. There's no reason an 11-year-old should be being taught that in schools. What power would you as governor have to affect that? Well, as the superintendent of schools, you have the power to set. the agenda and as much as possible to say and obviously it gets into local versus statewide but from the top say this we have to focus we have to have what is age appropriate and we have to more importantly get even more focused on the core fundamentals of teaching reading writing you know

get back to those basics I don't like it when you hear that when Oregon kids from Oregon high schools graduate and go to community college for 40% of them need remedial classes when they're going to community college right now. We're not getting done what we should be done in the schools, and we need to focus on the core issues is, I don't want to send my parents, my kids to school and have the teacher undo what I'm teaching them at home. I want them to be able to teach them to read. I want them to be able to teach them to do math.

That is what I want. Chris, we saw the situation, you know, the encounter with Ed Deal at Dorchester. What happened with that? Ed says that Ed claims that, you know, you said that you're going to kick his ass over the, I think that's the quote over the abortion talk. No, no. And that's what, it's just unfortunate. I mean, obviously, campaigns exposed character.

I mean, you were sitting there, you were not letting them go. Oh, I gave him a hard hands. What was going on? I gave him a hard handshake. And I told him I didn't appreciate some things. But, you know, that's, you know, I gave my heart handshake. handshake. That's, you know. What were you talking about?

Maybe I'm old school. That's not, that's not, that's not, that's not a big deal in, Chris, what did you say? I don't even matter. I think I, I may have called them in ASS, but, but, you know, but, you know, and I'm not alone in that. I think, you know, a number of the other candidates feel the same way, but, you know, so be it. You know, it's, uh, that's life. And a hard handshake isn't that big a deal. All right. We don't have much time left. left with Ed Deal, I'm sorry with Chris Dudley. We're just talking about Ed Deal, pardon me. But hi, you're on caller. You're on with Chris Dudley. Go ahead. Morning. Hi, yeah. I have a question for Mr. Dudley. I'm actually wondering about wildfires.

I feel like ever since, gosh, all the way back to like maybe the biscuit fire, there was like a major presence, like the Greyback started and everything. But like just recently, the fire that was started by the back burning or whatever got out of control. And I'm just wondering, like, our taxpayer is going to be paying for that? And I feel like these fires are for profit. And are you going to make any changes with that? Like, maybe introduce more logging rather than miss burning by young adults that maybe aren't knowing what they're doing.

And who's financially responsible? Are these companies getting double paid by being, you know, I don't know. Let's see what he has to say. Thank you very much for the call. Yeah, no, and I do feel like in. right now with timber and with logging, our states, you know, lose, lose, where we've really,

we've gotten rid of so many jobs, we've lost revenues for the counties, and I would say environmentally, the catastrophic wildfires are bad environmentally as well. And so I want us to better manage our forests and increase that production. And obviously you have to figure out liability when fires start,

where they've come from. But I do think it's, I think it's pretty clear that we need to, do a better job of managing our force than we are today. Chris, you are in town, obviously, since you're here. Oh, yeah. Are you at any events that people can go see you or meet you? So we're at lunch.

What's the dog? There's a fundraiser tonight that I'm going to. I was at the event last night at the for the Oregon historical side, which was very interesting talking about the Revolutionary War. We're doing a lunch today. I can get you the information. Good. Yeah, I'll give you the information where it is. Yeah, exactly. I'll get in touch with my people, which is me.

Yeah, exactly. I'll get you the exact details. And we were here yesterday. We're here all day to day, and it's important to be here, and I really appreciate you having me on. Chris Dudley, we appreciate you. Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming. And best luck. We'll see what happens on Tuesday. Thank you. I appreciate it. We'll see what the voters say. Yes, absolutely. Let's go win.