Oregon Democrat Kotek wins tough three-way race for state governor

By Daniel Trotta and Julia Harte

(Reuters) – Democrat Tina Kotek won a tough three-way race to become the next governor of Oregon, the Associated Press projected on Thursday, enabling Democrats to extend nearly four decades of control over the Oregon governorship.

With 91% of the expected vote counted, Edison Research had yet to call the race. Official returns from Tuesday’s election showed Kotek winning 47.1% of the vote to 43.5% for Republican Christine Drazan.

Betsy Johnson, a strong independent candidate and former Democrat, polled at 8.6%.

The last time a Republican was elected governor was in 1982, and Kotek was always favored to succeed Democratic governor Kate Brown, who could not run again due to term limits. With the polls tightening late in the race, President Joe Biden visited Oregon in mid-October to campaign with Kotek, a former state legislator.

The result would give Democrats a 17-16 edge in the 36 governor races from Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, with Alaska, Arizona and Nevada yet to be determined.

(Live election results from around the country are here)

Democrats have flipped two Republican governorships to their column, in Maryland and Massachusetts, with a chance to take Arizona away from the Republicans as well. Nevada, however, could slip from Democratic to Republican control.

Election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, said it could take until at least Friday to tally all votes from Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Seventy-six percent of the statewide vote had been counted as of Thursday, with Democrat Katie Hobbs leading by one point over Republican Kari Lake.

Elsewhere across the country, Democrats won elections for governor in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, enabling them to resist Republican efforts in those states to restrict abortion and voting rights.

In Michigan, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer was re-elected and voters flipped the state House and Senate from Republican to Democratic control. In Pennsylvania, where Democratic Governor-elect Josh Shapiro defeated an election denier, voters also turned the lower house of the legislature Democratic.

Republicans, though, displayed their electoral strength in marquee races in Florida, Georgia and Texas, where their candidates won handily.

Governors’ races across the country drew particular scrutiny this year, with the future of abortion rights and election oversight at risk.

Kotek ran hard on abortion rights and gun violence prevention, while Drazan had campaigned on public safety and order in a state that experienced sometimes-violent protests over racial justice and police brutality in 2020 and 2021.

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