With 26 of 36 of the state’s counties reporting, Oregon’s race for governor has gone down to the wire. At press time, Democrat Ted Kulongoski led by more than 15,000 votes over Republican Kevin Mannix.
In Oregon House District 8, Democrat Floyd Prozanski defeated University student Greg McNeill. Democrat Tony Corcoran defeated Republican David Alsup in Oregon Senate District 4.
In one of the closest gubernatorial elections in decades, major-party candidates Mannix and Kulongoski fought neck and neck during the last weeks of the campaign and far into election night.
Kulongoski campaign spokeswoman Kristen Grainger blamed Mannix’s campaign for the up-in-the-air result.
She said Kulongoski, who has been a frontrunner throughout the gubernatorial campaign, had been hurt by the “$3 million in mostly negative campaign ads Kevin Mannix has run.”
At press time, Mannix and his campaign staff could not be reached for comment.
Tom Cox, the Libertarian candidate, came in third with 4.6 percent of the vote. The former chairman of the Libertarian party of Oregon ran on a platform of restructuring key state funding sources, giving students school choice and privatizing parts of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.
“I’ve demonstrated to the Oregon electorate and political machine that libertarianism is on the rise … and we’re appealing to the electorate,” Cox said on election night.

House District 8
By a 7,484 to 3,135 margin, area voters returned Prozanski to Oregon’s House of Representatives Tuesday night, as he defeated Republican McNeill in the District 8 race.
Prozanski, who previously represented some areas of House District 8 before he was termed-out, credited his win to his “previous experience and long-term commitment to the community.”
With a mounting budget deficit and many difficult choices facing the Oregon Legislature, Prozanski would like to see a more moderate approach from both parties.
“We’re going to have to build relationships within the chambers and reach across the aisles and work along the same lines,” Prozanski said.
McNeill, a 21-year-old political science major, ran his first public-office election on student-representation platform and hoped to capture votes from the University-area within the 8th District.
“It was an uphill battle from the beginning,” he said. “This campaign never got any momentum.”
McNeill would not speculate on his plans for the future, but admitted he may be mulling a run for the city council or attempting to another run for House District 8.
“I think politics is definitely in the future,” he said.

Oregon Senate District 4
Voters of Oregon’s Senate District 4 returned Corcoran to the Senate by 2,000 votes over Republican Alsup.
Democratic Corcoran previously served two terms in the Oregon House, and first won his Senate seat in 1999. Corcoran ran on a platform of creating a more progressive state tax structure. He could not be reached for comment election night.
Republican Alsup, a care provider and family farmer, ran on reducing the size of state government and providing affordable health care for seniors and low-income people.