Poll: Brown, Pierce locked in tight battle for Oregon governor

Clout Research

A new Clout Research telephone poll of likely General Election voters shows the race for governor of Oregon very close, with incumbent Democrat Kate Brown leading Republican challenger Bud Pierce, 45% to 43%.

The survey showed three other candidates winning less than 2 percentage points each, with another 6% yet undecided in the race.

Both Brown and Pierce are struggling somewhat to gather the support of voters in their respective parties, as Brown is winning just 75% of Democrats and Pierce wins just 77% of Republicans, but Pierce enjoys a 11-point advantage among political independents, an all-important demographic group which is keeping him in the race, the survey shows.

Pierce is also showing stronger cross-party appeal, as he wins 19% support from Democrats, while Brown wins 13% support from Republicans across the aisle.

As there has been in Clout polling throughout this gubernatorial contest, the gender gap continues in dramatic fashion, as Pierce leads by 18 points among men and Brown leads by 19 points among women.

Broken out by congressional district, Brown holds a predictable and substantial advantage in CD3, while Pierce leads by a wide margin in CD2. In both CD1 and CD4, the race is very close, but Pierce leads by 8 points in in CD5.

Clout polling of this race has shown it to be very close all year long, as Brown has struggled to keep her favorability rating high and to shore up Democratic support in the wake of the Kitzhaber scandal. Pierce has faced challenges familiar to Republican statewide candidates in Oregon in recent elections. The top of the ticket on ballots this fall has helped neither candidate for governor, as the ebbs and flows of charges and counter-charges between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have left voters less enthusiastic than in previous presidential elections.

Clout Research is a leading opinion research company established in 2005 and working nationwide with clients in politics, business, media, government, and the non-profit sectors.  It conducted a survey of Oregonians statewide October 20-21, 2016, regarding political issues. The telephone survey, which included interviews with likely voters in landline and cell phone-only households, included 928 respondents. It carries a confidence interval of 95% and a margin of error of +/- 3.22 percentage points.