Democrat John Kitzhaber won the extremely close gubernatorial race against Republican Chris Dudley after a day’s worth of ballot counting Wednesday.
Ballot counting continued through election night and well into the next day until Republican challenger Dudley conceded the race just after 7 p.m.
At the time of Kitzhaber’s victory announcement, online political pollster www.politico.com showed Kitzhaber with 662,547 votes to Dudley’s 652,969 votes, with 98.5 percent of the state reporting.
Governor-elect Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, will be serving his third term as Oregon’s governor, having held the office for two terms from 1995 to 2003 before current Governor Ted Kulongoski. Kitzhaber won with the support of democratic stronghold cities such as Portland and Eugene, which hold some of the most dense populations in the state and were reporting their ballot counts well after the rest of the state.
The 2010 duel between political veteran Kitzhaber and newcomer Dudley is the closest gubernatorial match in decades.
Nationally, Oregon’s race for governor was one of the closest. Other close gubernatorial elections include Minnesota, where the contest is likely heading for a recount, and Illinois, where the race remained too close to call after 24 hours of ballot counting.
In Salem, the state House of Representatives will be evenly split between members of the major parties — 30 Democrats and 30 Republicans — and the State Senate could very well end up in a similar deadlock. As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans secured seats in the State Senate with one seat still in play.
The undecided race is between Democrat Martha Schrader and Republican Alan Olsen for State Senate District 20 between Salem and Independence, Ore.
Oregon Democrats held super majorities in both the State House of Representatives and State Senate prior to election night.
Speaker of the House Dave Hunt said in a press release that the decisive Republican victories represented a new era in Oregon’s legislature.
“Our challenge is to forge even stronger relationships between all the members of the Oregon House,” he wrote.
With the 2011 Legislative session just around the corner and tough obstacles in Oregon’s budget, Governor-elect Kitzhaber will do business with a considerably more balanced partisan legislature than in recent years.
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