The Kitzhaber for Governor campaign just released a new poll that shows him far ahead of Al Gore's buddy Bill Bradbury in the race to the Oregon primary:

Ouch. More details on the poll below the cut. Update 2:51 pm: Plus a response from the Bradbury campaign. They say this poll is actually good news for them.

Bradbury was clearly more progressive on green issues when I talked with both candidates about their environmental agenda last month. But Kitzhaber definitely has strong support in the state.

From JK's campaign:

The poll was conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates for the Kitzhaber campaign and sampled 554 likely Democratic primary voters in Oregon. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2% at the 95 percent confidence level...

Fully 69 percent of Democratic primary voters view Kitzhaber favorably, including 41 percent who say their view of him is “very favorable.” Fewer than one in five Democratic primary voters (16 percent) have an unfavorable view of Kitzhaber. Bradbury is also well regarded, with 54 percent having a favorable perception and 13 percent unfavorable.

But Bradbury is less well-known to voters, and only one-quarter (25 percent) have a “very
favorable” view of him.

So can Bradbury swing thirty percent of voters before May rolls around?

UPDATE: Bradbury's campaign says this poll is actually good news for them. From campaign spokesman Jeremy Wright, who believes Bradbury's name recognition has risen in the past two weeks thanks to appearances at the Willamette Woma's Democrat Forum, Howard Dean's endorsement and an appearance on KPOJ:

This Kitzhaber poll is actually good news for our campaign. For a two term Democratic Governor to be polling barely over 50% in his own party shows a real weakness and an opportunity for us to get our message out that Bill Bradbury is THE democratic candidate in the race.

Frankly, this tells us what we already know, that John Kitzhaber is the establishment candidate in the race with a high name ID.