Secretary of State candidate Brad Avakian responds to a question as GOP candidate Dennis Richardson listens. A recent poll shows Avakian has a three-point lead over Richardson, with 45 percent of voters either undecided or backing another candidate.

Capital Bureau

SALEM — Democratic candidates running statewide in Oregon are leading by varying margins, according to results of a new poll released Tuesday.

Gov. Kate Brown was the choice of 44 percent of those surveyed, outpacing Republican candidate William “Bud” Pierce by 17 percentage points, according to the poll conducted by icitizen, a Tennessee company. Twenty-three percent of voters were undecided on their choice for governor.

Brown’s lead over Pierce mirrors the advantage Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has over Republican Donald Trump in Oregon. The icitizen poll puts her ahead, 43 percent to 28 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson was favored by 11 percent of the respondents while Green Party candidate Jill Stein drew 3 percent.

According to the poll, the contest for the Oregon secretary of state is much tighter.

The Democratic candidate, Brad Avakian, leads his rival, former state representative and gubernatorial candidate Dennis Richardson, by just 3 percentage points.

Avakian, the labor commissioner, took in 29 percent while Richardson garnered 26 percent of vote in the survey. Thirty-six percent were undecided and 9 percent favoring a minor party candidate.

Brad Pyle, Avakian’s campaign manager, said Richardson’s views on abortion rights and immigration are at odds with those of most Oregonians.

“The election will not be held until voters have had time to see that Dennis Richardson represents the Trump wing of the Republican Party,” Pyle wrote in an email response to the poll results.

Richardson, in a statement in response to the poll results, said he believed he was “well-positioned” to win the race.

“An internet-only poll has the upside of being able to reach really motivated voters who aren’t interested in taking a phone-only poll, so it’s helpful to see the responses as we build a mosaic of polling that shows my race moving in the right direction,” Richardson said in the emailed statement. “What’s notable about iCitizen’s model is while we miss seeing responses from highly-motivated voters who aren’t online, this tech-savvy generation of voters has me trending up. From iCitizen’s June poll, we’ve closed the gap in this target audience by a full point. When we overlay that with traditional polling we have, our turnout model shows we are well-positioned to win in November.”

The icitizen poll, conducted online from Sept. 2-7, asked 610 Oregon voters who they would vote for if the election were held today. It has a margin of error of four points.

Many polled remained undecided about their choice for secretary of state, as did many who were polled about the treasurer’s race.

Just under half — 48 percent — of voters surveyed said they were undecided in the contest for treasurer.

Democratic candidate Tobias Read, a state representative from Washington County, received 25 percent of votes. Republican Jeff Gudman, a Lake Oswego city councilor, took 18 percent. The third candidate, Chris Telfer, an Independent Party candidate from Bend, was the choice of 9 percent surveyed.

Voters were not surveyed on the contest for the state’s attorney general, which is between incumbent Ellen Rosenblum and Daniel Crowe, a Portland public defender.