An interesting stat-based review of the recent governor's race turns up on Oregon Catalyst; some assessments in it may be questionable, but overall it strongly merits a read.
The former includes lines like this, about the Democratic voter registration advantage in Oregon: "The current 200,000 advantage is a holdover from the unusually high Obama bump of 2008 and could vanish as easily as it was created depending on national events and what happens in Oregon." Sounds a little optimistic for Republicans; the gap was built over several elections, and it largely persisted through this year.
It does make some other useful points. One (mentioned elsewhere too) is that the third party field in Oregon has gravitated to the right. The largest "other" party, the Independent, seems to draw from both Republican and Democratic leaners, and the largest remaining minor parties draw mainly from the right. That's a structural problem for Republicans.
And notes that "Democrats were able to get out more direct mail reminders, phone calls and personal door visits for voter turn-out than Republican efforts." That seems clearly true.
The post doesn't try to make the argument that Dudley was a bad candidate or that he had a bum campaign; neither was really true. It notes that "The campaign slogan 'Join Oregon’s Comeback' was the most original in a decade," and that may be true. But there was also this tart comment: "The overuse of out of state consultants and staff was a serious handicap for the campaign. It was an inside joke that when you visited the campaign headquarters you entered a sprawling oversized building filled with a dozen people you have never seen before and you knew you would never see them again (because they leave the state after the election)."
Probably more significant, this on the matter of experience for the office: "Moore information polling showed that Dudley could not breach the experience gap. It is not just that Dudley had no experience, it is that he had no experience against a man who held the office twice. A Moore Information poll showed that this was an 11% penalty for Dudley." Our sense has been for some months that this was a critical point, and Moore's number puts a tag on it.