Based on Oregon Secretary of State campaign-finance filings downloaded September 30, 2026.
On September 16, a carpenters' union council headquartered in Oakland, California, wrote a $10 million check to Building a Stronger Oregon, a Portland-registered political action committee. It is the largest single contribution in Oregon's electronic campaign-finance system, which began in 2007, and more than twice the previous record, a $4.46 million contribution DuPont Pioneer made in 2014 against a genetically modified food-labeling measure. Only three earlier contributions in the state's records reached $3 million: DuPont Pioneer's, Providence Health & Services' $3.3 million in 2019 for a tobacco-tax campaign, and Nike co-founder Phil Knight's $3 million in October 2025 to Bring Balance to Salem, a PAC that backs Republican legislative candidates. The first two paid for ballot-measure fights. This November there is little of that: the Legislature referred no measures, and OPB reported in June that only one citizen initiative was on track to qualify. The Oregon Journalism Project first reported the check on September 28. The union has not said what the money is for: the PAC's treasurer declined to discuss it with the Journalism Project, and the union's lobbyist did not respond.
Who wrote the check
The Journalism Project described the donor as "a California carpenters union," and the contributor on the state filing is the North Coast States Regional Council of Carpenters in Oakland. That council has also been the Oregon carpenters' regional council since this winter. According to the Northwest Labor Press, on January 28, 2026, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters' general president, Douglas McCarron, moved ten Oregon and Washington locals into what had been the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council and renamed it. The move added about 24,000 carpenters, bringing the council to 57,500 members, so most of its members are still in California along with its headquarters. Within the Carpenters union, regional councils, not locals, run "organizing, collective bargaining, and political action," the Labor Press reported. The Oregon PAC's own registration lists a California phone number and an email address bearing the council's initials, and its treasurer, Eric Morgan, is the council's government affairs representative, according to the Northwest Labor Press. The state filing does not show which members' dues or which part of the union's treasury the $10 million came from.
What the PAC has done with its money
Building a Stronger Oregon spent $417,297 in 2024. Before the check arrived this year, it had spent about $716,000, mostly on Democrats: $250,000 to Gov. Tina Kotek's campaign in August, $150,000 to the Senate Democrats' caucus fund and smaller gifts to dozens of legislative candidates. Of the $852,500 it has given this year to partisan candidates, caucus funds and parties, $22,000 went to Republicans, including $5,000 to a PAC run by Senate Republican Leader Bruce Starr. Since the check arrived, it has made one payment of note: another $250,000 to Kotek on September 28. Its filings now show $9.96 million in cash, more than the campaigns of Kotek ($5.19 million) and her Republican opponent, state Sen. Christine Drazan ($1.25 million), hold combined.
The governor's race money, side by side
The candidates have raised similar amounts this year: $12.27 million for Kotek and $10.28 million for Drazan, who has spent slightly more, $10.00 million to Kotek's $9.52 million. The carpenters' single check is about the size of Drazan's entire 2026 fundraising and more than 80 percent of Kotek's. The Journalism Project's figures of $8.3 million on hand for Kotek and $965,000 for Drazan were accurate when it wrote them; the next day Kotek's campaign reported $3.76 million in September payments to two media-buying firms, and Drazan's balance has since risen.
| Gifts of $25,000 or more since Jan. 1, 2025 | Kotek (D) | Drazan (R) |
|---|---|---|
| Total | $9.95 million | $7.48 million |
| National governors' association | Democratic Governors Association and its Victory Fund, $3.83 million | None found |
| Largest individual donor | Kelly Kimball of Agoura Hills, Calif., $200,000 | Don H. Jones Jr. of Ashland, $1.75 million |
| Construction | Unions (carpenters, electricians, plumbers, ironworkers), $1.15 million | Contractors, excavators and equipment dealers, $2.28 million |
| Other leading donors | SEIU Local 503's PAC $1 million; Oregon Nurses PAC $800,000 | Marta Von Borstel $400,000; Murphy Plywood $350,000 |
| Share from outside Oregon | 58%, or 31% without the governors' association | 6% |
The out-of-state figure depends mostly on one kind of donor. The Democratic Governors Association is a national party organization, and without it Kotek's share of large gifts from outside Oregon falls from 58 percent to 31 percent. Its Republican counterpart, the Republican Governors Association, does not appear under its own name anywhere in Oregon's filings for 2025 and 2026; national groups sometimes spend through committees with other names, which that search would not catch. Drazan's money is more Oregon-based and more concentrated: one Ashland businessman, Don H. Jones Jr., has given her $1.75 million, more than eight times Kotek's largest individual donor. Construction money is on both sides and, in direct gifts, favors Drazan: $2.28 million from contractors, excavators and equipment dealers, against $1.15 million to Kotek from construction unions, almost half of it from the carpenters. The carpenters' $9.96 million in reserve is what could reverse that.
Where the money can go
Oregon has no limit on contribution size in this election, so the PAC can give any amount to any candidate or committee, or spend the money itself on advertising, before November 3. Oregon's first contribution limits, in House Bill 4024 of 2024, take effect January 1, 2027. Section 24 of that law says a PAC like this one that is still operating on March 31, 2027, becomes a "multicandidate political committee," and that the money in its bank account "may be used in the same manner as any other moneys contributed" to such a committee. The Legislature's 2026 rewrite of the law, House Bill 4018, did not change that section. Any money left over after this election would then be spent under the new rules.
Other contests on this fall's ballot include Senate seats that decide whether Democrats keep 18 of 30 seats, the three-fifths majority required to pass revenue bills; the PAC has already given $150,000 to the Senate Democrats' caucus fund and $10,000 to Democrat Denise Krause in the closely watched District 3 race in Southern Oregon.
What the union has sought, and what is next
The carpenters' public record shows what they have sought from Kotek. On November 6, 2025, she held a ceremonial signing of Senate Bill 426 at the union's Portland training center; the law, in effect since January, holds property owners and general contractors jointly liable for workers' unpaid wages, and the carpenters' Oregon council called it "a huge win." General contractors are among Drazan's largest donors. The next governor and Legislature will also have to take up transportation funding again. Voters rejected the 2025 gas-tax and fee increases in May, with more than 83 percent of the votes counted by the next morning against Measure 120, OPB reported. That money pays for road and bridge work, which matters to construction donors on both sides of this race: the contractors backing Drazan bid on it, and the union members backing Kotek build it. The carpenters' council has not tied its $10 million to transportation or any other policy, and this account does not assume a reason it has not given.
What the record shows, and what it doesn't
The record points one way. Ninety-seven percent of the PAC's partisan giving this year has gone to Democrats, including $500,000 to Kotek, and the political insiders the Journalism Project called expect the $10 million to follow. What the filings cannot show yet is how it will be divided: how much goes to Kotek, how much to legislative races such as the Senate seats that decide the three-fifths majority, how much the PAC spends on its own advertising, and how much it keeps. Keeping a large share is possible: the PAC spent $417,297 in all of 2024, and under the new law whatever remains carries into 2027. The union has not said what it intends, and neither campaign had commented publicly on the check in the coverage Profoundd reviewed. From September 22 through Election Day, Oregon requires committees to report each transaction within seven days. The rule reports transactions after they happen, not plans, and a transfer made in the final week before November 3 would not have to be reported until after the polls close.
How this was reported
Profoundd downloaded the filings of Building a Stronger Oregon (committee 23285), Friends of Tina Kotek (4792) and Friends of Christine Drazan (19050), every Oregon transaction of $3 million or more since 2007, and the three committees' 2026 account summaries from the Secretary of State's ORESTAR system on September 30, 2026. Party labels come from each recipient committee's state registration. Out-of-state shares count contributors' listed addresses. Other sources: Oregon Journalism Project, September 28, 2026; Northwest Labor Press, April 17, 2026; Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, "Strength in Solidarity"; Enrolled House Bill 4024 (2024) and Enrolled House Bill 4018 (2026); OPB, May 20, 2026.
