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Will Lathrop, a former prosecutor in Yamhill and Marion counties, officially announced his candidacy today for Oregon attorney general.
“I am running for attorney general because I have the vision and experience to lead our state towards a future with safe, healthy, and thriving communities,” Lathrop said. “It’s painful for me to watch the state that I love suffer. Oregon is a wounded beauty—a beautiful state marred by crime and addiction. I represent a dawn of new leadership that will bring lasting change and ensure a safer, healthier future for Oregonians.”
A sixth-generation Oregonian from Wallowa County, Lathrop graduated from the University of Puget Sound and Willamette University College of Law before beginning nearly nine years as a prosecutor, first in Yamhill County, then in Marion County.
He moved on from there to a brief stint at the National District Attorneys Association and then to a Virginia-based nonprofit called the International Justice Mission. That group, according to its Linkedin page, “secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.” Lathrop worked for the group for a little over eight years, spending most of that time in Uganda and Ghana. He returned to Oregon last year and set about running for attorney general.
Republicans have not won an AG’s race in Oregon since 1988, when the late Dave Frohnmayer won his third term in that office. In the past two cycles, the GOP candidates challenging incumbent Democrat Ellen Rosenblum, who was appointed to her office in 2012, have barely raised enough money to mount a statewide campaign.
In 2016, Daniel Crowe raised about $75,000 in his race against Rosenblum. He got 41.7% of the vote. In 2020, the GOP couldn’t even find a lawyer to challenge Rosenblum—the party’s nominee was activist Michael Cross, who raised just shy of $11,000—and nonetheless got 41.3% of the vote. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to Richard Meeker, the co-owner of WW’s parent company.)
In contrast to his two predecessors, Lathrop started raising money in June 2022, according to state filings, and has now raised about $310,000. (His two largest contributors are Richard Withnell, a retired Salem auto dealer [$55,000] and Scott Parrish, the president of A-dec, the Newberg dental products giant.)
Lathrop’s likely opponent, House Speaker Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis), a trial lawyer, has raised about $325,000 since announcing in early October he would seek the Democratic nomination to replace Rosenblum, who is not running for reelection.
Democrats hold a 9-percentage-point voter registration advantage over Republicans, which is why they usually win statewide elections. But with voters more concerned about public safety than in recent election cycles, Lathrop’s prosecutorial background could give him more of a chance than his GOP forerunners.
Most of the Department of Justice’s work involves advising state agencies and representing them in court (including defending criminal convictions on appeal), but the office does have a criminal section—which Lathrop is keen to discuss with voters: “I’ll focus on reducing crime and restoring safety in our communities,” he said. “[And] limit harmful government overreach by ensuring state agencies follow the law, and restore trust in our government institutions by enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for public corruption.”