Oregon Man Campaigns for Governor in Pencil Costume to Spotlight Education Crisis
Why It Matters
Oregon’s gubernatorial race has attracted an unusual entrant this cycle — a six-foot-tall walking pencil — but the cause behind the costume is anything but lighthearted. Oregon fourth-graders rank last in the nation in reading proficiency according to a prominent national assessment, a statistic that has galvanized literacy advocates and drawn attention from candidates across both parties heading into November.
What Happened
J. Schuberth, a former college professor and longtime literacy advocate, built a full-body pencil costume earlier this year and began walking the streets of Portland to campaign for governor under the name “Pencil.” The character — complete with a pointed yellow tip, bespectacled face, and pink eraser — has been canvassing farmers markets, handing out flyers, and urging voters to skip the major-party candidates and write “Pencil” on their ballots.
Schuberth’s message is pointed: Oregon Democrats have held a supermajority, or near one, in the state legislature for years, and the state’s children are paying the price in the classroom. “This is an indictment of the people who are running our state,” Schuberth said during a recent campaign appearance at a Portland farmers market.
Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat seeking re-election, faces no serious challenger in the May 19 primary. A field of Republican candidates is competing for the chance to oppose her in November. Pencil is asking voters to reject them all.
By the Numbers
- Dead last: Oregon fourth-graders rank 50th in the nation in reading, according to a prominent national testing analysis cited by the campaign.
- May 19: The date of Oregon’s primary election, in which Kotek faces no major opposition.
- Write-in threshold: Under Oregon law, election officials only count write-in votes by candidate if the total write-in tally exceeds votes cast for the leading candidate — meaning Pencil’s vote total may never be officially known.
- One workaround: Schuberth is exploring submitting a public records request for ballot images to conduct an independent tally of votes cast for Pencil.
The Legal Reality
Pencil will not become Oregon’s governor. The state constitution does not permit an anthropomorphized object to serve as chief executive, and Schuberth is aware the campaign is more symbolic than electoral. The goal, Schuberth says, is to demonstrate that Oregonians are frustrated enough to write an inanimate object onto their ballot — a signal that leaders should take seriously.
“People are willing to write in an inanimate object,” Schuberth said. “We might have a problem.”
Voters at the Portland farmers market appeared to take the message to heart. Several Democrats said they would consider a protest write-in vote even while hoping Kotek ultimately wins re-election. One parent with young children cited the state’s poor outcomes as the reason her family was considering private school despite the cost. Even a candidate for county judge said he would consider writing in Pencil’s name.
Zoom Out
Oregon’s literacy struggles are not unique, but the state’s performance stands out even against a national backdrop of pandemic-era learning loss. Many states have moved aggressively toward structured literacy curricula and phonics-based instruction following research showing those methods outperform older reading approaches. Oregon has begun similar reforms, but Schuberth argues the pace has been too slow and the political will too weak.
Governor Kotek has acknowledged the problem, saying reading and literacy have been a priority since her first year in office. She has backed legislation giving state officials more authority to intervene in underperforming school districts and pushed for upgrades to literacy instruction programs. Republican candidates in the race have made education outcomes a central line of attack against her administration.
What’s Next
The May 19 primary will be the first electoral test of how much traction education frustration has among Oregon voters. Whether Pencil draws enough write-in support to make headlines — or to be counted at all under state law — remains to be seen. The general election matchup between Kotek and whichever Republican emerges from the primary field will likely keep education policy at the center of the debate through November.
For broader context on current federal policy priorities, see coverage of Trump’s agenda heading into talks with China and ongoing discussions about border and national infrastructure decisions shaping the 2026 political landscape.