Oregon Governor Results: Kate Brown Reelected For Her First Term

PORTLAND, OR – Kate Brown has won reelected and will serve her first term of her own. Brown, who took over when John Kitzhaber resigned under a cloud.

Brown fought back a tough challenge from Republican Knute Buehler who was looking to become the first Republican to hold the office since Vic Atiyeh left office 31 years ago.

With 70 percent of the vote counted, Brown had a sizable lead. She had 657,891 votes to Buehler's 576,518. The votes still need to be certified.

Recent polls had Brown leading Buehler by about four points. What made the race more interesting is that it's a rematch of their 2012 campaign for Secretary of State, won by Brown.

"This election was truly about Oregon's future and this is what it looks like and isn't it beautiful," Brown said in her victory speech.

"When our values are on the ballot, Oregonians come together to fight like for what we believe."

Buehler conceded about 45 minutes after the polls closed, saying "it's time for Oregonians to unit and find common ground."

Brown also had to overcome $3.5 million in contributions from Nike founder Phil Knight to Buehler – $2.5 million to Buehler directly and another $1 million to the Republican Governor's Association, which backed him.

"No one should be able to buy the governor's office," Brown told supporters.

"I knew the race was going to be close, and thought it would be close all along, but to take this solid of a lead made me really happy."

The 58-year-old Brown made history when in 2016 when she became the the first openly bisexual to be elected governor in the United States.

While she has looked out for LGBTQ rights, it has not been a centerpiece of her administration.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 gave Brown a lightning rod on which to focus energy.

She has fought back against federal efforts to roll back environmental regulations – introducing legislation that would make Obama-era environmental rules the standard in Oregon.

She has also been been fighting back against proposals to allow oil drilling off of the Oregon coast.

Brown has fought hard against federal attempts to limit reproductive rights, focusing on Oregon's long history of being one of the leading defenders of those rights.

As secretary of state before becoming governor, Brown led the fight to pass the first bill automatically registers to people to vote when they get their driver's license. While many states have been working to suppress the vote, she's worked to make sure that voting is available to all in Oregon.

It hasn't been all smooth sailing.

Oregon public schools, while improving, rank behind many states and Brown has not solved the state's multi-billion dollar pension crisis. At the same time, the problem is years-old and none of her predecessors have been able to solve it either/

Her supporters also say that she has been subjected to criticisms that have been unfair and sometimes bordered on misogynist.

Several point to the Oregonian's decision to endorse her rival, saying that she hasn't done enough to earn another term while praising Buehler for supporting measures that they didn't identify as being hers.

Brown, who was born in St. Paul, MN. She moved to Boulder, CO., where she majored in environmental conservation at the University of Colorado, also getting a minor in women's studies.

She also met her future husband, Dan Little, there.

She moved to Portland, getting a degree from Lewis & Clark's environmental law program.

Brown began to see herself as an activist, volunteering for the Portland Feminist Women's Health Center, accompanying women to appointments at reproductive health clinics where they were often targeted by anti-abortion protesters.

In 1991, she was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the Oregon house. By the time she left six years later when she was elected to the state senate. When the Democrats won control of the senate in 1998, she became the first woman to be the senate majority leader in Oregon.

In 1997, she had another milestone, reconnecting with Dan Little who had been working for the United State Forest Service – he's now retired. They got married that year and Brown became the step-mother to Little's two children from a previous marriage.

After a little more than a decade in the senate, Brown took the leap and made her first run for statewide office, getting elected as secretary of state, Oregon's number two elected spot.

BUEHLER...BUEHLER

Knute Buehler, the 54-year-old doctor and representative from Bend, is trying to walk a tightrope. He wants to reproduce the success of Donald Trump in 2016 when he won 28 of Oregon's 36 counties. At the same time, he doesn't want voters in Oregon's urban centers such as Portland to associate him too much with the president.

It remains to be seen just how successful that he will be.

On his face, Buehler does have similarities including the fact that even though he's a millionaire, he has kept the majority of his tax returns hidden from public view. He told the Oregonian at one point that he has "15 different corporations, so to tell you which one is taking advantage of a specific tax bill" is not an easy task.

Buehler has tired hard to portray himself as more liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal issues.

He describes himself as pro-choice and has a voting record that generally supports that. One exception has been is opposition to a bill that would enact stricter privacy protections for people getting medical procedures including abortions.

Buehler has also voted in favor of gun control measures and supports same-sex marriage.

One big fiscal issue where he disagrees with Brown is on how to fix the state's pension problems. Buehler would like to salary limits as well as a plan to transition workers into a 401-K type program.

By walking that tightrope, Buehler is hoping to win the votes of Oregon's non-affiliated voters. While Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans by more than 200,000 voters, there is a very large block of more than 800,000 voters who are either independent or non-affiliated.

That's nearly double the number that were in Oregon when Chris Dudley nearly defeated Kitzhaber.

Buehler grew up in Roseburg and went to Oregon State University where not only did he play on the baseball team, he graduated with degrees in microbiology and history.

He also became the first Oregon State student to be selected as a Rhodes Scholar. As a result, he studied economics and philosophy at Oxford University's Merton College.

While studying at Oxford, he also studied at John Hopkins School of Medicine, getting a degree there. He then became an orthopedic surgeon.

Buehler met his future wife there when the two shared a cadaver.

After moving back to Oregon, he opened a practice in Bend.

His success there led to a growing practice and the creation of a medical device and consulting company. He has said he would no longer do work for the company if elected.

While he got his first taste of politics in 1992 when he volunteered for the Ross Perot presidential campaign, it wasn't until 2012 that he ran for office.

It turned out to be the first run against Kate Brown as they both sought the office of Secretary of State.

Brown won by more than 140,000 votes – or almost eight percent.

Two years later, he ran – and won – a seat in the state house.

He immediately made a name for himself when he introduced a bill guaranteeing women on-demand prescriptions for birth control pills.

After some balking by Democrats leery of his motives, enough of a coalition came together to pass the bill.

Buehler says it that ability to work across the aisle that will make him a good governor.

Photos via Brown, Buehler campaigns.