Former House Republican Leader Christine Drazan and former House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, are leading in the race for governor, but many voters remain undecided more than five months before the decisive November election, a new poll released Wednesday found.
Nearly 30% of likely Oregon voters picked Drazan as their choice for governor, while nearly 28% chose Kotek in a poll conducted by Nelson Research, an Oregon-based public opinion research firm. Unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson drew more than 19% support.
Given the poll’s margin of error, 4.3%, that puts Drazan and Kotek in a statistical tie for first place and also puts Johnson in a statistical tie with Kotek for second place – an indication of just how competitive the three-way race for governor could be in November. Nearly 24% of likely voters remain undecided, the poll found.
The early poll of 516 likely voters conducted on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week sheds some light on the race, but should be viewed with caution, given that the general election campaign has yet to begin in earnest.
Kotek beat state Treasurer Tobias Read to win the Democratic primary for governor last month, while Drazan beat out corporate consultant and former state lawmaker Bob Tiernan and a half-dozen other serious candidates in the Republican primary.
Johnson, a former longtime Democratic lawmaker, is running unaffiliated. To get on the general election ballot, Johnson will need to gather 23,743 valid voter signatures, representing 1% of the votes in the last presidential election, according to state law.
The poll appears to have misidentified Johnson as a candidate with the Independent Party. She is running independently as an unaffiliated candidate.
Johnson has already raised $8.6 million for her campaign and proven that she can draw big checks from major Republican donors including Nike co-founder Phil Knight. She didn’t wait until the primary was over to build name recognition, spending $1.4 million on TV and radio advertising and $76,000 on Facebook ads to introduce herself to voters in the months leading up to the primary.
Both Drazan and Kotek spent big during their primary races, but haven’t yet had the chance to spend significant money introducing themselves to general election voters. Drazan spent $2.7 million during the primary while Kotek spent $2.5 million.
The poll was conducted several days before Johnson’s controversial appearance at TedxPortland, where her pro-gun-rights stance infuriated many ticketholders at the event in Oregon’s left-leaning largest city. Organizers of the lecture and music event appear to have run afoul of IRS rules that prohibit tax-exempt nonprofits from giving any political candidate preferential treatment by giving Johnson an unannounced spot in the event lineup Saturday.
