Jim..I think you characterize it better than I did. Changing the post to reflect your more accurate assessment.

Good breakdown, Carla. This race will be one of the most important in years past and future. Our next governor will be faced with enormous challenges and will need to find creative, bold solutions to respond to the realities of the people of Oregon.

I would not call Kitz's advantage over Walden (6 points) as "absolutely crushing." In fact, the way I read the numbers is that there are few surprises, except that Walden looks stronger than we would expect, and Kitzhaber perhaps a little weaker. If I were the blue team, I'd be eyeing Walden with a healthy bit of respect.

Yeah, Jeff, I think you might be right. It's interesting that despite having 10 points lower favorables than Kitzhaber and being tied in unfavorables, the head-to-head matchup has Kitz up by 6.

Similarly, Bradbury and Walden are basically tied in the favorables, and Walden is 10 points higher in unfavorables - and yet, the head-to-head is a tie.

It seems that people don't like Walden very much, but aren't yet willing to say they'd vote against him.

(Which seems, oddly, where Kulongoski was in 2006. He was the least popular unindicted Governor in the country going into 2006, and yet beat Saxton handily. They don't have to love you to vote for you.)

While I have no interest in underestimating Walden, I think you guys (Kari and Jeff) are way too optimistic about him. He has a huge hill to climb west of the Cascades, where virtually all of the key precincts are.

I think his numbers against Bradbury are more about Bradbury and less about Walden. Especially when you look at Bradbury vs the other GOPers--while he wins, Bradbury's numbers are still somewhat soft.

I think this is much more about people recognizing the names of the people more than anything else.

Carla - I'm behind Atkinson 34-29, not 43-29. Indeed the oddest thing about this poll is that Atkinson (whom I expect to be the nominee) gets 34 or 35 whoever he's matched up against. The other striking thing is how ongoingly unpopular gordon smith now is.

Carla - I'm behind Atkinson 34-29, not 43-29.

Fixed. Thanks for the catch, Steve..and apologies for the transposing.

While I have no interest in underestimating Walden, I think you guys (Kari and Jeff) are way too optimistic about him. He has a huge hill to climb west of the Cascades, where virtually all of the key precincts are.

Carla, while I would have agreed with your assessment in the absence of these numbers, they are a little startling. The poll presumably includes respondents in Portland, though I don't know anything about the methodology. But we must assume it does. And yet a relatively low-profile Republican (only 61% of respondents knew enough to offer favorable/unfav) is still doing better than a former US Senator. Given that midterms usually favor the out-of-power party, and given that it's hard to imagine the GOP brand sinking any lower than it is now, Walden looks pretty good.

Have a look at the numbers with Walden versus the Dems:

Republicans v Kitz, DeFazio, Bradbury, Novick
Smith -9, -10, -4, +13
Walden -6, -8, +1, +15
Atkinson -13, -14, -7, +5

Walden is competitive against everyone except DeFazio (who does very well in his own rural districts, so that's not surprising).

It's very early, and 39% of the people don't know Walden, so take it for what it's worth. But the poll suggests that depending on who runs on the D side, he could be tough.

You could probably consider Atkinson's numbers as "Generic Republican" since his name ID is probably pretty bad (despite running statewide in 2006).

Which makes the gap between Walden and Atkinson fairly interesting. Having never run statewide, Walden is looking pretty good right now.

Carla, while I would have agreed with your assessment in the absence of these numbers, they are a little startling. The poll presumably includes respondents in Portland, though I don't know anything about the methodology.

Yeah, R2K has a pretty good record so I'm guessing they probably didn't forget to poll west of the Cascades. It's hard to debate these numbers without anything else to compare them to.

That said, I think it's notable that all of the Republican candidates draw around the same level of support regardless of who they face. For example, Smith gets 37% against Kitzhaber (who has high name ID) and 41% against Novick (who has really low name ID), a difference of only 4% which is technically within the margin of error. That's not to say that the difference isn't real, just that it's pretty small. In fact, the biggest different for a Republican candidate is Walden who picks up 5 points going from Kitz to Novick. That seems surprising to me given how few people are familiar with Novick, and it seems like good news for Democrats. I wonder if Republican candidates might face serious difficulties picking up additional votes once they get into the low 40's.

No, I don't think Jason Atkinson is a generic Republican. I actually think he's quite interesting.

But his poll numbers are probably those of a generic Republican. You could just as easily have asked "...or Republican Scott Jorgensen" and gotten the same numbers.