PENDLETON — Gubernatorial candidate Betsy Johnson on a trip last week to Pendleton defended her move to run unaffiliated.

“We did some early polling to see Oregonian tolerance for a nonaffiliated governor and it was astonishingly high,” Johnson said Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Hamley Steakhouse & Saloon. “I believe that I have the character, the capability, the institutional history, the knowledge of the budget, and at my age and as a native daughter of Oregon, I didn’t want to sit around and watch Oregon decline, so I made the commitment to run.”

Johnson is in a tight three-way race with Republican nominee Christine Drazan and Democratic nominee Tina Kotek.

Pendleton was Johnson’s last stop after a long day of travel that began in Scappoose and had stops Eugene, Springfield, Medford and Bend before Pendleton, where she would meet with supporters.

“It’s been a fun and an interesting day,” she said. “Yhis is sort of the last opportunity to make a case for why an independent governor makes sense and we’ve been very warmly received.”

After meeting her supporters, Johnson spoke on her stances regarding future gun legislation and controls, and briefly touched on her view of how she would address Oregon’s ongoing energy transition.

“Tina wants to take away all the guns, she’s backing Measure 114, which even some progressives are stepping away from, and Christine thinks everything is fine,” Johnson said. “As a responsible gun owner, endorsed by public safety, I’ve got 95 working or recently retired public safety people, including the last four superintendents of the state patrol, they trust me. Second Amendment guys trust me. I think I’m the guy that can bring people together and say, ‘We’ve got to do something.'”

Johnson said she believes she’s the only honest broker in a conversation about gun controls.

“We must not lose track of the fact that we reduce this argument to gun versus no-gun,” Johnson said. “It isn’t that. I’m not going to disarm law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment right. But I think I’m the guy that can legitimately and authentically broker a conversation between responsible gun owners and people who recognize as I do that there is a growing gun issue in the state.”

Johnson also spoke to her commitment to continuing Oregon’s ongoing energy transition, but emphasized she would not have that transition be “carved from the backs of working Oregonians.”

She acknowledge that climate change is real and Oregon needs to do its share, but “Aspirational Portland solutions are not necessarily practicable in farmland, there’s gotta be a balance.”

She said some of that in research and development through the state’s “powerhouse research and development engineering schools,” some through a commitment to use electric vehicles and some as a commitment to increase solar and wind.

“But I simply would not stand by and allow rural jobs to be stripped away with aspirational and untried plans,” she said.