Oregon governor’s race between Tina Kotek, Christine Drazen among those too close to call, results expected today

As expected, Tuesday’s general elections in Oregon resulted in several races that were too close to call.

The delay on decisive results was caused by particularly hotly contested races in normally blue Oregon, extended deadlines for voters to turn in ballots and a few hiccups during vote counting.

Here’s the lowdown on closely watched races that remained without a winner Tuesday night, yet are likely to be called Wednesday.

Oregon governor

Oregon’s most competitive race for governor in a dozen years was one of several tight contests that were too close to call late Tuesday.

Tina Kotek, the Democrat, is ahead of Republican Christine Drazan by just over 1 percentage point, and about 650,000 of the state’s projected 1.9 million votes have not been tallied. Kotek appears on track to win with a generous share of ballots that still must be counted in Democrat-dominated Multnomah County.

At 11 p.m., Kotek led with 45.8% of the vote compared to Drazan’s 44.5%. Unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, a former longtime Democratic state lawmaker who ran a well-funded campaign, was in third place with 9% of the vote.

The Oregonian/OregonLive expects the winner will become clear by mid-day Wednesday.

Congressional District 5

Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer appears poised to win with a less than 5 percentage-point lead over the Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner. But the Democrat is ahead in Clackamas County, which had only tallied about half its ballots as of 11 p.m. Tuesday.

The race is one of the most competitive – and closely watched — in the country this year, after McLeod-Skinner ousted seven-term incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader in May.

Chavez-DeRemer led 52.2% to 47.5% and, if her lead holds, she could join Andrea Salinas, who was leading in the 6th District, as Oregon’s first Latinas in Congress.

Congressional District 6

Democratic lawmaker Andrea Salinas holds a 2 percentage-point lead over Republican businessman Mike Erickson in Oregon’s new 6th District. The majority of the district’s voters live in Washington and Marion counties. It’s a tough race to call because most of the votes still to be tallied are in Marion County, where Erickson holds an edge.

As of 11:15 p.m., Salinas led with 49.9% of the vote to Erickson’s 47.8% in Oregon’s first new congressional district in 40 years that stretches from Portland’s southwest suburbs to Salem.