Your friendly neighborhood Oregon-trotting campaign correspondent, in a piece written Tuesday night:

Could Oregon governor John Kitzhaber, a three-term Democrat, lose his bid for reelection because of scandals involving his fiancée? After Kitzhaber survived a cavalcade of embarrassing and expensive failures of state government, could he lose to Republican Dennis Richardson because of the Oregon first lady’s consulting business?

A new Survey USA poll, released Wednesday:

With each passing hour bringing new revelations about Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s fiance, Cylvia Hayes, KATU-TV and SurveyUSA attempt here to break the Oregon electorate into 4 quadrants. The question asked of voters paying close attention to the governor’s election and who are following news stories about Hayes, was this:
Which of the following best describes you?
38% were going to vote for Kitzhaber and will still vote for Kitzhaber.
37% were going to vote for Richardson and will still vote for Richardson.
18% were going to vote for Kitzhaber but now will vote for Richardson (disproportionately young, male, independent, liberals).
1% were going to vote for Richardson but now will vote for Kitzhaber.
6% overall, and, importantly, 9% of Democrats, are not sure what to do.

As the pollsters note, it is possible this poll reflects people saying they’re going to switch to Richardson, to express their disapproval of the Kitzhaber scandals, but that they won’t actually carry through with it. And importantly, the above numbers do not reflect the results of their entire sample, just the sub-sample of registered voters paying close attention:

SurveyUSA interviewed 950 Oregon adults 10/20/14 and 10/21/14. Of the adults, 856 were registered to vote. Of the registered voters, 60% (514 voters) are paying a lot of attention to the race for Governor. Of those paying attention, 79% (407 voters) are following stories about the fiance, Hayes. The poll’s essential question was asked just of the 407 qualified respondents. This may or may not directly overlap the universe of Oregon’s likely voters in 2014.

Remember, Oregon is a vote-by-mail state, so the definition of a “likely voter” in Oregon should be broader than in other states.

Dave Weigel scoffs at the notion that the first lady’s scandals could cost Kitzhaber reelection when voters yawned at Cover Oregon. He’s partially right in the sense that this is still a deeply Democratic state, and Kitzhaber’s head-to-head numbers against Richardson have been way better than his job-approval numbers. But the crunchy, progressive, quinoa-microbrew Oregon voters might have been able to explain away the Cover Oregon debacle as well-meaning incompetence. Oregon’s first lady, Cylvia Hayes, doing well-paid consulting work for groups with business before the state gives off a whiff of corruption, which probably strikes a significant number of voters as a different, and more serious, governing sin.

Kitzhaber is still the favorite, but Oregonians’ patience with him is clearly being tested, and there’s a deep vein of pent-up frustration for Richardson to tap.