Democratic Gov. Kate Brown leads her Republican challenger Rep. Knute Buehler by 3 percentage points, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The survey suggests Oregon's governor's race is tight in the final days before Tuesday's 8 p.m. deadline for voters to return their ballots. Forty-five percent of people polled by The Hoffman Research Group said they planned to or had already voted for Brown, compared with 42 percent who supported Buehler.

Brown's lead is within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, meaning it's possible she could pull off a more decisive win or lose to Buehler. Hoffman surveyed 694 likely voters by landline and cell phone.

The Hoffman survey also asked respondents whether they had already turned in their ballots. Among those who had, Brown held a 6 percentage point lead.

"It's obviously tightened," said Hoffman's pollster Tim Nashif, whose firm is based in Portland. In Hoffman's last poll, released in September, Brown held a 10 percentage-point lead.

Another notable poll result was that undecided voters were more than twice as likely to voice support for Buehler: 28 percent compared with 12 percent for Brown. However, the number of undecided voters in the survey was small: just 49 people.

-- Hillary Borrud

hborrud@oregonian.com

503-294-4034; @hborrud