Nike Weighs in on Governor’s Race, Giving Tina Kotek $75,000

Oregon’s largest homegrown company makes a statement, although a smaller one than its co-founder.

nike1_sg The Seb Coe building contains a Stumptown Coffee Roasters location, just for Nike employees and visitors. (Sam Gehrke)
By Nigel Jaquiss

As ballots arrive in voters’ mailboxes, Nike has made its first contribution in the governor’s race—$75,000 to Democratic Party nominee Tina Kotek.

In a race that has already shattered the previous record for spending ($40 million in 2018), a $75,000 check is hardly noteworthy, except when it comes from Oregon’s largest homegrown company. (Nike employs more than 8,000 people at its Washington County headquarters.)

Nike gave similar amounts to the previous two Democratic candidates for governor—Kate Brown and John Kitzhaber. In those races, however, the company gave earlier in the cycle, so its check today is the first signal of which candidate the company favors.

And in a year when unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson and Republican Christine Drazan have garnered most of the contributions from businesses and executives, its a sign of confidence in the Democrat, although far less generous than the $3.75 million Nike co-founder Phil Knight gave to Johnson and the $1 million he’s given to Drazan. (Despite Knight’s largesse, Kotek has outraised her rivals, bringing in $23.5 million so far to Drazan’s $17.8 million and Johnson’s $17 million.)

Knight, 84, no longer plays a day-to-day role at Nike and, in a rare interview, told The New York Times last week: “Nike has good leadership. They make choices, whatever they want, but I think I’m more conservative than Nike.”




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