Mark Graves / The Oregonian | OregonLive

Poll workers collect and process ballots at the Multnomah County Elections office ahead of Tuesday's election deadline.

By BETSY HAMMOND

The Oregonian | OregonLive

With just days to go, Oregon is on track to achieve the highest voter turnout in a non-presidential election in a quarter-century.

Nearly one-third of registered voters had returned their ballots to county election offices by the close of business Thursday, compared with the normal rate of about 28 percent.

Registered Republicans and Democrats are entirely responsible for that stampede, with turnout at 40 percent among both groups. Four years ago, 32 percent of the registered voters in both parties had cast ballots at the same point in the election cycle, historical election documents show.

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Voting experts said the huge increase is a sign that Oregon voters are highly tuned into the election by the hyper-political mood nationwide.

“People just want to get out there and express their voice,” said Reed College political science professor Paul Gronke

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Mark Graves / The Oregonian | OregonLive

More than 160,000 ballots have already poured in for processing at the Multnomah County elections headquarters. Turnout in Oregon's largest county reached 36 percent by Friday.

Jim Moore, director of political outreach at Pacific University’s Tom McCall Center for Civic Engagement, said such high turnout well ahead of Tuesday’s election shows that an extra-large share of the electorate is certain about who should be Oregon’s next governor. “They are voting because they know who they are voting for,” he said.

Equal turnout rates among Republicans and Democrats heavily favor Democratic candidates and Democratic positions on measures, because so many more Oregonians register as Democrats than Republicans. As of Thursday, the state’s Democrats had returned 105,000 more ballots than Republicans.

Still, it is unaffiliated voters, who make up the middle 20 percent or so of Oregon’s voting spectrum, who will decide most statewide races.

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The surprisingly competitive campaign for governor between incumbent Democrat Kate Brown and Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler is by far the highest-profile race in this fall's election, Moore and Gronke said.

Buehler’s uphill battle to claim the governorship in a heavily Democratic state hinges on his ability to persuade a substantial share of Democrats and of Democratic-leaning unaffiliated voters to vote for him, they said. Parsing the votes once they are tallied Tuesday will be the only sure way to know how well it worked.

“We’ll see,” Moore said. “Buehler has made it a specific part of his campaign to say to Democrats that ‘I’m moderate. You can come vote for me.’ And he has to do that because, in Oregon, there are a lot more Democrats.”

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Mark Graves | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Multnomah County elections workers are busy processing hundreds of thousands of ballots in the run-up to Tuesday's election deadline.

To win the governor’s race in Oregon, the top candidate generally needs to win only 47 percent or so of the vote, given the ability of minor party candidates to capture 4 to 6 percent of the vote, Moore noted. Given the strong turnout patterns so far, Buehler faces a real conundrum, he said.

“Even if he wins all the Republican votes and half the unaffiliateds, she wins,” he said. “He has to pick up Democrats.”

The last time a midterm election generated such high interest in Oregon was 2010, when 71.9 percent of registered voters took part. That year featured the closest governor's race in modern history, with Democrat John Kitzhaber edging Republican former NBA star Chris Dudley by just 22,000 votes out of 1.49 million cast.

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Mark Graves | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Oregon set its all-time turnout record in the historic 1990 election that ushered in the state’s first female governor, Democrat Barbara Roberts, and the landmark Measure 5 property tax limits. In that pre-vote-by-mail election, 76.7 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

Unlike some other states, where early voting also has reached record highs this year, Oregon isn’t considered a battleground in the race for control of the U.S. House and Senate. Oregon’s five contested races for Congress are expected to yield easy wins for the four Democrats in the House delegation and a victory for the lone Republican, Rep. Greg Walden.

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Mark Graves | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Instead, all eyes are on the governor’s race, which has drawn a record $33 million in contributions.

Four measures — on immigration enforcement, abortion, taxes on soda and other groceries, and a higher hurdle for lawmakers to raise taxes and fees — also are featured and have netted a collective $11 million in campaign spending.

Voters have until 8 p.m. Tuesday to return ballots to elections offices and official drop boxes around the state. Four years ago, nearly 450,000 voters — 29 percent of all who cast ballots — waited until the final day.

-- Betsy Hammond

betsyhammond@oregonian.com