Twelve weeks after Bud Pierce said he planned to stop self-funding his bid for election to the Governor’s Office, the Republican nominee and his wife have poured another $250,000 into his campaign.

Pierce, a Salem oncologist, is trying to unseat Gov. Kate Brown Nov. 8 to complete the last two years of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s four-year term. As former secretary of state, Brown inherited the governorship when Kitzhaber stepped down in February 2015 amid an influence-peddling scandal over contracts awarded to his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes.

Pierce and his wife, Selma, who both are Salem physicians, each made a $125,000 contribution to Pierce’s campaign Oct. 11.

“Bud has run a campaign on fighting to reform and take back government from entrenched special interests, and to that end he has put in personal funds to supplement and amplify the thousands of donors, many of which are small donors, who have invested in his candidacy,” said Nellie deVries, a Pierce campaign spokeswoman. “Bud is focused on laying out a vision on how he can make government better utilize taxpayers’ hard earned money, and it is no surprise our opposition will say or do anything to maintain the status quo.”

The couple already had contributed more than $1 million mostly to fund Pierce’s campaign for the primary, which he won against former Oregon Republican Party Chairman Allen Alley May 17.

Pierce said at the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association forum in Silverton July 22 that he would rely on larger Republican donors to orchestrate his general election campaign.

“Kate Brown will have union backing; that’s for sure, and she’ll have large donors, and I need to be able to do that,” Pierce said July 22. “That is part of being a viable candidate.”

Much of Pierce’s $2.5 million in campaign contributions have come from small donors. His largest donations since July 22 were $50,000 apiece on Aug. 8 from Mark J. Burham, a Salem finance executive with Hawthorn Development, and Norman L. Brenden, president of Hawthorn Development Vancouver.

Brown has reported about $3.3 million in campaign contributions so far.

The Pierces’ $250,000 contribution Tuesday came two days before Pierce was scheduled to debate Brown a fourth time in Medford.

Pierce’s campaign has been trying to recover from a controversy over his comment at a debate at the City Club of Portland Sept. 30 suggesting successful women aren’t susceptible to domestic violence. Pierce made the comment minutes after Brown suggested she was a victim of domestic violence. She later clarified that the incident happened when she was a young woman and did not involve her husband, Dan Little.

Pierce has repeatedly apologized for the comment.

He acknowledged at a debate in Eugene Oct. 6 that his campaign was in crisis over the flap. He said the controversy caused him to delay the completion of his proposed state budget, which he finally released Wednesday, Oct. 12.

Pierce already faced poor odds of defeating Brown in Oregon’s predominantly Democratic political environment, but his moderate Republican platform had drawn some independents to his side.

His proposed budget calls for investing more money in education and transportation, while giving some small tax cuts. The proposal comes while budget writers project a nearly $1.4 billion shortfall in 2017-19 to maintain existing services. Pierce said he plans to gradually trim the number of state employees from 40,000 to about 25,000, according to OPB. He would make the cuts in small increments, about 3 to 4 percent a year, by not replacing employees who resign or retire, OPB reported.

Chris Pair, a spokesman for Brown’s campaign, called Pierce’s plan “unrealistic” and “reckless.”

“Dr. Pierce can try to bail out his campaign with his own money, but he can’t have the same approach when it comes to the services Oregon families depend on,” Pair said in a statement.