Without friendly media giving Kitzhaber the usual Democrat discount, Governor continues slide. 
Richardson pulls within 2% in a poll with a +/- 3.95%
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber is continuing his favorability slide with Oregon voters even within his own base, according to a new poll of registered, likely voters. The poll was commissioned by the Oregon Taxpayers Association and performed by public affairs firm Wentzel Strategies based in Ohio. The phone poll of 607 likely voters was taken between May 29-June 1. The poll showed the third term governor’s favorability has slid six points in the last month compared to an OPB poll taken last month. While the sample group was smaller and skewed slightly older, perhaps from not including cell phone users, it contained some very encouraging news for Kitzhaber’s younger challenger Dennis Richardson. The poll indicated the Republican has pulled to within two points of Kitzhaber. When the margin for error is taken into consideration, Kitzhaber’s advantage is erased. Among the eye opening revelations:
47.8% claim Oregon is going in the wrong direction
55% said Kitzhaber should be replaced.
56% said Kitzhaber was doing only a fair or poor job
Who are these people?
52% voted to give Kitzhaber his current third term.
47% identified themselves as liberal or moderate.
Taxpayers Association PAC Director Jason Williams said Kitzhaber has no one to blame but his own horrible job performance, including the Covered Oregon and education department debacles.
The spike of Kitzhaber negativity can be directly attributed to a recent string of bad news national in scope over Oregon’s performance, for what we are calling the 100 Days Media Meltdown. In the past 100 days, there have been seven colossal Oregon failures stories, with many of these headlines carrying a national perspective– 55% Oregon voters want him replaced!
I’ll be mining more info from this poll soon, but this poll should be a real Kitzhaber wake up call. Problem is, he has such a string of media reported leadership disasters, I wonder if he can do anything to reverse the perception of his disasters.
