Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler
is waging a serious challenge to incumbent Democratic Gov. Kate Brown,
with both candidates getting support from 45 percent of likely voters,
the latest poll shows.
(Facebook)
If there's a "blue wave" coming in 2018, someone may
have forgotten to tell Oregon's voters. A Republican challenger has
pulled even with blue state Oregon's Democratic incumbent governor,
according to a new poll.
The news comes as a surprise in a state that hasn’t
seen a Republican governor since late 1980s, sparking fears of the end
of Democratic Party’s total domination of the state.
The poll indicates that Republican state Rep. Knute
Buehler is waging a serious challenge to Gov. Kate Brown, a vocal critic
of President Trump, with both candidates getting support from 45
percent of likely voters, the
Oregonian reported.
January 9, 2017: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown delivers her inaugural speech in the Capitol House chambers in Salem, Ore.
(AP)
Oregon is considered a solid blue state, with Democrats
controlling both the state House and Senate, while Brown has been the
governor since 2015.
The poll, conducted by Florida-based Gravis Marketing,
invigorated the race overnight, though Democrats began questioning its
validity.
“It's hard to understand how this is a reputable piece
of public opinion research,” Brown’s campaign spokesman, Christian
Gaston, told the Oregonian.
"It's a bit surprising to see a Democratic statewide candidate in Oregon have such weak numbers, but (Brown) does."
- John Horvick, DHM Research Vice President
But other pollsters in the state aren’t dismissing the
poll showing the two candidates deadlocked in the race, saying Brown
doesn’t have strong voter support.
“We've seen it pretty close, head-to-head, between
Brown and Buehler,” John Horvick, vice president and political director
of DHM Research in Portland, told the newspaper. "It's a bit surprising
to see a Democratic statewide candidate in Oregon have such weak
numbers, but (Brown) does.”
DHM Research’s previous poll in January indicated Brown was leading Buehler 46 percent to 29 percent.
The latest poll, showing Brown struggling against a
Republican in a solid blue state, strikes at the core of Democrats’
messaging about the looming so-called “blue wave” in the upcoming
midterm elections.
Buehler is running a campaign based strictly on
statewide issues, avoiding any national politics distractions. His
platform is moderate Republican, promising to “restore fiscal sanity”
and not to impose new taxes, all while improving the state’s education
system.
Brown, meanwhile, appears to stick to the Democratic
Party’s efforts to gather support by pointing fingers at the White House
in a bid to energize voters in a state where the overwhelming majority
of voters supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016.
Brown has since become a loud voice in national
politics. She has repeatedly called out the Trump administration over
issues of immigration and, more recently, criticized the selection of
Judge Brett Kavanaugh as President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court.
But attacks on Trump may not work against Buehler as he
himself once condemned Trump. In 2015, before Trump became the
Republican Party’s nominee for the president, Buehler called Trump
“angry” and “self-absorbed” while urging voters to reject him in the
state's GOP primary.
“For Republicans to win nationally and here in Oregon,
we need a presidential nominee and GOP that is positive, inclusive and
hopeful,” he said at the time.