Nick Kristof Doesn't Qualify For Oregon Ballot, Official Rules

PORTLAND, OR — Nick Kristof, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former columnist for The New York Times who lives on the Yamhill farm where he grew up, doesn't meet residency requirements to run for governor in Oregon, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan ruled.

Although Kristof moved back to Oregon from New York in 2019, the secretary of state's office said he still did not meet the three-year residency requirement to be on the ballot for governor in November.

Kristof said Thursday afternoon that he'll challenge the ruling in court.

"They view my campaign as a threat,” Kristof said. "The challenges we face aren’t gonna go away, and so neither will I

"I left a job that I loved because our state cannot survive another generation of leaders turning away from the people they pledge to serve."

Kristof's campaign said that they are sure the law is on their side.

"We're confident that Nick will be the next governor of Oregon," a person close to Kristof told Patch.

Kristof quit the Times and announced his run for governor in October. He raised $1 million over the course of a couple of weeks to support his bid to succeed Kate Brown.

Kristof is the son of a refugee who settled in Oregon in 1952. He attended public schools there and found his first journalism job while in high school, working at the McMinnville News-Register.

"I exist only because Oregon showed compassion for a refugee," Kristof said in his announcement last year. "It's that Oregon — the one of hope and opportunity, the one that reveals the best in us, even when things are at their worst — that I believe in.

"We seem to be losing some of that now, but I know we can create it together. That's why I'm running for governor."

Kristof quit the Times last fall after working there 37 years.

Kristof moved back to the farm full time with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn — with whom he shared a Pulitzer Prize — in 2019, after splitting time between New York and the family farm for many years. They've turned it from what had been a farm focused on cherries and sheep to a winery and orchard.

Despite that, the secretary of state found Kristof doesn't meet the three-year residency requirement to qualify for the ballot. She cited the fact that he voted in New York in 2020.

"The rules are the rules and they apply equally to all candidates for office in Oregon," Fagan said.

"I stand by the determination of the experts in the Oregon Elections Division that Mr. Kristof does not currently meet the Constitutional requirements to run or serve as Oregon Governor."