By Greg Janetka and Maresa Strano

SALEM, OR: There are four statewide offices on the ballot in the Beaver state this year - attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and labor commissioner. Three incumbents are seeking re-election, with the fourth, attorney general John Kroger, retiring to become president of Reed College. The only two primary contests awaiting settlement tomorrow are the Democratic nominations for attorney general and secretary of state.

Besides the nonpartisan race for labor commissioner, which voters will not address at the polls until November due to a new election law,^[1] the state executive primary races are all partisan and thus subject to this year’s open Republican primaries. Oregon’s Republican party, which has struggled over the last decade to elect a single candidate to state row, decided to extend a special invitation to the state’s over 420,000 unaffiliated voters to participate in its primaries for attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer.^[2] The gesture meant to attract these voters, which compose 21% of the state’s electorate, to GOP candidates early in the election season and to build goodwill for the floundering party.

Ultimately, the gesture was an empty one; Republican presence has dwindled so much in recent past that it took considerable effort by the party to recruit one candidate -Knute Buehler for secretary of state- between the three races, let alone produce enough candidates to stage a Republican primary contest. ^[3]

Owing to the forgone presidential primary contests, Secretary of State Kate Brown predicted that voter turnout in Tuesday’s primary will be in the “low 40s,” which would be the lowest voter participationfor the state’s presidential primary in modern history.^[4]