Friday's Oregonian and tonight's KATU newscasts report the latest results from Tim Hibbitt's poll on the presidential race and ballot measures in Oregon.
Great news: Kerry leads Bush 49 percent to 43, with 8 percent undecided. Less great news on the ballot measures below the fold.
Sorry if this has been posted, but I can't find it. Details
here, but a few observations in the diary:
Hibbitts considers the results significant because almost half of Oregon voters have already cast their ballots, given our unique vote-by-mail system. So Oregon seems pretty locked in.
The internals, available in PDF at the link, indicate a good representation of respondents across the state and throughout age range, and significantly more of them claim they voted for Bush than for Gore in 2000.
Bad news on the initiative fronts. I won't go into details here, but the noxious effort by insurance companies to limit non-economic damages is ahead, as is the "taking" measure, which is a scheme by timber and real estate interests to destroy Oregon's storied land-use planning regulations. As is to be expected, our own version of the Hate Amendment is ahead by a few points. It would be terribly disheartening if these three anti-people measures made it across the finish line. I am hoping that our famous proclivity to vote "No" on ballot measures will win out in the end.
Still, very good news for the Kerry campaign, as Hibbitts is the most respected pollster in the state. When Hibbitts calls a race, it's called for good. He hasn't called Kerry the winner yet, but he obviously thinks we won't have to wait as long as we did last time to learn that Oregon is a reliably Democratic state.