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A decade ago, Chael Sonnen was a reliable newsmaker in Oregon conservative politics. The former University of Oregon All-American wrestler-turned-mixed martial arts fighter won the Republican nomination for an Oregon House seat before withdrawing under the cloud of a money-laundering indictment.
He appears ready for a return to the political arena. This year, he’s told two media outlets he plans to run for Oregon governor.
“I’m going to be governor of Oregon a lot sooner than a lot of people in Oregon think,” Sonnen told Fox News talk-show host Greg Gutfeld on Nov. 20.
In a previous interview on a podcast in March, he didn’t commit to whether his bid for office would be in 2026 or in a later election cycle. WW could not immediately reach Sonnen for comment.
President-elect Donald Trump has made testosterone a political platform, so it’s hardly surprising to see Sonnen, always a big talker, sensing an opening to tout his own election prospects. But like Trump, Sonnen would need to overcome a criminal history.
In 2010, he withdrew from the race for House District 37 (West Linn and parts of Washington County), saying he had encountered legal difficulties. A year later, he pleaded guilty to a count of money laundering in connection with mortgage fraud. (West Linn Republican Julie Parrish jumped in the race and won the seat.) On the campaign trail, he’d already won “Rogue of the Week” honors from WW for making racist remarks to an Ultimate Fighting Championship opponent and then denying he’d done so.
Since his retirement from UFC, Sonnen, 47, has worked as a fight promoter and a mixed martial arts commentator. He also faced six misdemeanor battery charges in 2019 for his part in a brawl at a Las Vegas Strip hotel. He pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor and paid a fine.
Last week’s interview on Fox News was Sonnen’s highest-profile confirmation of his political aspirations. But in a March interview with the Florida-based podcaster Patrick Bet-David, Sonnen acknowledged that Gov. Tina Kotek is a hard worker and a formidable incumbent, and said he would break with Oregon Republicans’ practice of tacking to the center to appeal to Portland-area voters.
“Why we’re the second-bluest state in the nation, it’s just one county—it’s Multnomah County and it’s Portland,” Sonnen said. “And the Republicans come in every single cycle and they try to appease the people in Multnomah County. They try to win them over every time. I don’t know why they do that. I will annex Multnomah County. I will put it on Zillow and sell it to the state of Washington….I have no idea why they’re trying to appease any of those people. I will buy all their property. I will pay them and they can leave.”