It looks like John Kitzhaber will be governor of Oregon again. While Dudley has a slight lead in the current count of about 5000 votes, the remaining votes to be counted are in Democratic strongholds of Lane and Multnomah counties. Multnomah gave Kitzhaber 70% of its vote and Lane 56%.
http://www.oregonlive.com/...
While we didn't suffer the decimation Dems in other parts of the country did, we did lose some state legislature seats. The House is now evenly split between Dems and Republicans and there are 2 races still to be decided in the State Senate. The Dems need one of those two to claim a majority.
This is probably the closest governor's race here in awhile. The job situation has something to do with that. So does the fact that Kitzhaber's previous stints as Governor produced mixed results. He is not the most popular of politicians for a number of good reasons.
However, Chris Dudley would have been a total disaster. So this is very good news.