Nicholas Kristof Ineligible To Run For Oregon Governor

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof will not be allowed to run for governor of Oregon, the state Supreme Court decided Thursday, ruling that he did not meet the state’s residency requirements.

Candidates must live in the state for at least three years leading up to the 2022 election, a requirement state elections officials said Kristof, who voted in New York in 2020, did not meet. Kristof appealed that January decision, claiming that he has “considered Oregon to be his home at all times”; his campaign provided materials to show the writer has a long history of owning property in the state, and summering there .

The court ruled that Kristof’s record was not enough for the secretary of state to be “compelled” to decide in his favor.

“Although the Court recognized that there was evidence that pointed in the other direction, the Court could not conclude that the secretary was compelled to find that [Kristof] remained domiciled in Oregon through the early 2000s or that he had regained an Oregon domicile by November 2019, three years before the November 2022 general election,” the decision stated.

Kristof announced a run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination October 2021 after leaving the Times last summer. He has said he has lived in Oregon since 2019. As HuffPost’s Kevin Robillard reported , Kristof has owned property in his hometown of Yamhill, a city 25 miles southwest of Portland, since the 1990s, though his family has also owned a home in suburban Westchester County in New York — where his children went to school.

Kristof’s ineligibility leaves the race up to two rivals for the Democratic nomination, state House Speaker Tina Kotek and state Treasurer Tobias Read.

“Nick Kristof has long written about pressing issues facing Oregonians and his voice will continue to be important as we tackle Oregon’s biggest issues. I look forward to working with him as a fellow Democrat,” Kotek said in a statement after the court’s decision was released.

The state’s primaries are on May 17.