SALEM — The 2022 election has entered the sprint at the end of the marathon.

There are now less than 60 days until the Nov. 8 election day. That’s a short time left in a campaign season that began 667 days ago with the final ballot cast on Nov. 3, 2020.

The Oregon governor’s race alone has generated more than $28 million in campaign fundraising by the three top candidates. It’s just a matter of weeks until the 2022 campaigns will smash through the $40 million record set in the 2018 race between Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and Republican Knute Buehler.

Political campaigns across the country have traditionally set Labor Day as the point when candidates make the final drive to the finish line. 

Activists of all political hues have been deeply engaged in the races for well over a year. But the long weekend at the start of September is when casual voters start to pay attention to what will happen in November.

It’s a good time to take a snapshot of where things stand in the state’s historic and unusual governor’s race.

Candidates corral national support

Oregon has elected Democrats as governor every election since 1986. But with an unusual three-way race, some polls and national forecasters see enough turbulence to cause a possible upset of Democratic dominance.

The race for governor officially became a three-way affair late last month. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan announced Betsy Johnson, a former state senator and Democrat from Columbia County, had submitted sufficient petitions to qualify as an unaffiliated candidate for governor.

Johnson goes on the Nov. 8 ballot along with former House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, the Democratic nominee, and former House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, the Republican. Oregon has elected only one governor who wasn’t aligned with a major party, and that was back in 1930.

On and around Labor Day, each candidate for governor in 2022 was out in public to tout their campaign themes, usually accompanied by a duet, choir or chorus of supporters. New television ads and Google search website banners went up.

Drazan brought in Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who Morning Consult rated as the second most popular governor in the nation in the same ranking that put Oregon’s Gov. Kate Brown dead last.

Hogan, who cannot seek re-election because of term limits, praised Drazan for what he said was her willingness to take on the impact of homelessness and crime on communities.

“I think she’s the kind of leader that you really need in this state, who’s willing to focus on these issues, that’s willing to tackle some of them head-on,” Hogan said.

Kotek held a conference in Portland with national gun control advocates from Moms Demand Action to discuss gun crimes and safety.

The event came soon after a 20-year-old man used a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle in a mass shooting in Bend where he fired over 100 rounds, killing two men, then shot and killed himself as police closed in.

“A young person under the age of 21 should not have access to a weapon of war,” Kotek said. “We make it too easy, and we certainly see the situation, like in Bend, when the shooter had access to a gun that could do a lot of damage.”

Johnson rolled out the endorsement of 24 Oregon district attorneys — two-thirds of those in the state. The group lauded Johnson for promising to reverse a recent voter-approved decriminalization of small amounts of all hard drugs that the prosecutors said had undermined public safety.

“Betsy’s no-nonsense and common-sense public safety platform puts Oregon back on the right track,” said Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton in a statement released by Johnson’s campaign.

Biden’s bumpy poll numbers may not matter as much in Oregon

In early summer, President Joe Biden’s job performance rating was underwater, while Brown has rarely been seen on the campaign trail — her endorsement of Kotek is on the second row of a campaign website.

The entry of Johnson into the race has moved Oregon out of the Democrats’ usual sure-bet status. But the Washington, D.C. prognosticators also moved the 2018 re-election bid of Brown against Buehler to “toss-up” in the final two months of campaign, only to have Brown beat Buehler by nearly 7% of the vote.

FiveThirtyEight, a top forecaster, has Oregon as “Leans Democratic” in the governor’s race. The Cook Political Report also puts the race as “Leans Democratic.”

But the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in mid-August moved the governor’s race to “toss-up” from leans Democratic.

Nationwide, forecasters are hedging their bets on a “red wave” sweeping out large numbers of Democrats from Congress and statehouses. While Democrats face an almost impossible task of retaining control of the House, trends are looking better in the Senate and in governors races. 

Cook Report’s Amy Walter wrote earlier this month that 2022 voters were more “meh” on the ties between the White House performance and other races.

These voters might disapprove of Biden’s job performance, but that didn’t translate directly to support for Republican candidates.

“Many voters who are unhappy with Biden are nonetheless committed to supporting a Democratic candidate in November,” Walter wrote.

More head-to-head forums coming in Oregon 

Voters will get at least four more chances to see the candidates for governor go head-to-head.

Drazan, Johnson and Kotek have all accepted invitations to a series of televised debates:

Sept. 27 at KTVZ in Bend. 

Oct. 4 at KATU in Portland. 

Oct. 6 at KOBI in Medford. 

Oct. 19 at KGW in Portland.

Time ticks toward election

Voting begins sooner than many people realize and results could be later than they think.

Oct. 18 is the last day to register to vote in the Nov. 8 election.

The first ballots go in the mail to in-state voters on Oct. 19, three weeks before the Nov. 8 deadline to return votes in time to be counted.

Nov. 8 is the day voting stops. But valid ballots postmarked Nov. 8 could still arrive at county clerks office through Nov. 15.

A new state law for 2022 says ballots postmarked on an election day and arrive at a county clerk’s office within one calendar week will be counted. Ballots with postmarks after election day cannot be counted. Ballots that arrive after the one-week period cannot be counted even if they have a postmark on or before the election day.