Oregon has received 1,481,943 ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election, according to a state report generated at 4:50 p.m. Monday, November 2. That is 47.54% of the state’s 3,117,439 active voters. It is a substantial pile of envelopes in the contest between Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican challenger Christine Drazan, but the return count does not say which candidate is ahead. The first unofficial vote totals will come after polls close Tuesday night.
What the county returns do and do not show
The numbers show participation, not votes for governor. They will also change as counties process more ballots. Oregon’s Elections Division explicitly describes its return report as unofficial and subject to updates, so a county’s higher return rate cannot be treated as a lead for either party.
Deschutes County had received 90,495 ballots, or 53.68% of its active voters, by the report’s cutoff. Clackamas County stood at 158,908, or 48.92%; Lane County at 139,684, or 49.10%; and Multnomah County at 251,867, or 42.60%. Those percentages describe the share returned within each county, not how its residents marked the governor’s race. A ballot is also more than a governor vote: voters can leave a contest blank.
The governor polls remain close
The publicly released polling offers little basis for calling a winner before votes are counted. A DHM Research poll for The Oregonian/OregonLive, conducted September 24 through October 1 among 549 likely voters, put Kotek at 46% and Drazan at 44%. Its 4.2-percentage-point margin of error makes that a statistical tie. A separate OPB-commissioned DHM survey of 915 likely voters, contacted by phone and text September 17–27, gave Drazan 47% and Kotek 46% after undecided voters were pressed for a preference. That one-point difference was also inside its 3.24-point margin of error.
Kotek’s campaign released another survey by GBAO, conducted October 1–4 among 800 likely voters, showing Kotek at 46% and Drazan at 42%, with a 3.5-point margin of error. Because the campaign sponsored it and did not release detailed results, it should be read with that limitation in mind. DHM pollster John Horvick told FOX 12 on Monday that public polling has been limited in the campaign’s final weeks. None of these surveys measures votes already cast.
When Oregon will report votes
The Oregon Elections Division says official ballot drop boxes and county election offices will accept ballots until 8 p.m. Tuesday, November 3. A mailed ballot needs an Election Day postmark and can arrive up to seven days later. The state expects to post its first unofficial results shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, then update them as processing continues. If the governor’s race is close, the first release may not settle it that night.
