The results of many key elections in Oregon and Southwest Washington are still too close to call. Nationally, the election didn’t bring a decisive landslide that Republicans and many pollsters had been predicting. In one of the most competitive governor’s races in the nation, Democrat Tina Kotek has won, according to The Oregonian. Morning returns from Multnomah County showed Kotek amassing a sizable lead against Republican challenger Christine Drazan. Several congressional races are still too close to call. We cover a few races that appear more certain, including the change to Portland’s charter and Portland city council.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with a wrap up of Oregon’s elections. Some races are still too close to call, but we do have clarity on a number of significant seats and measures. In the race for governor, after the most recent batch of votes from Multnomah County earlier this morning, Democrat Tina Kotek has increased her lead over Republican Christine Drazan. Kotek is now up by two percentage points and The Oregonian has called the race for her. Democrats have won or are winning in four of the state’s six congressional districts. Oregonians have overwhelmingly supported a statewide ballot measure to prevent legislative walkouts. A measure to strengthen Oregon’s gun laws is passing right now as well, but the margin is very narrow, less than one percentage point.
In Portland area elections, voters appear to have chosen Rene Gonzalez over incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty for a seat on the city council, and both Portland and Multnomah County voters approved major changes to the way governance and elections are going to work. For an overview of what has been happening, I’m joined by OPB political reporter, Dirk VanderHart. Dirk, good afternoon.
Dirk VanderHart: Hey, nice to be here, Dave.
Miller: Good to have you on. So as I mentioned, as of the last count, Tina Kotek has a two percentage point lead over Christine Drazan. Do we know where the balance of the still to be counted ballots are likely to be coming from?
VanderHart: It looks like the majority of them appear to be in the Portland area. Last I checked there were around 100,000 or a little fewer votes to count in Washington County and Multnomah County, and those are just the votes we know have arrived. That doesn’t count mailed ballots that can still come in for the next six days. Clackamas County is also a question mark. I’m not sure how many votes are still outstanding there, but in any case there’s a lot of votes and those counties, particularly Washington and Multnomah, appear to favor Tina Kotek.
Miller: I’ve seen overwhelming support, especially in Multnomah County. It’s that math, the ballots still to be counted, that has led The Oregonian to call this race for Tina Kotek, just in the last hour. If I told you two years ago, that Tina Kotek would be in the lead or would win a gubernatorial election, I don’t imagine that you would be surprised, given that that’s been the norm - Democrats winning this seat going to Mahonia Hall for decades now - but this year feels different, right?
VanderHart: Oh yeah. There is a reason why Oregon voters saw Democratic stars like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, why Republican governors of Maryland and Virginia came to town. There’s just a huge national spotlight, and that’s because this has been viewed as an extremely close race. People don’t love Kate Brown. That is well known and often said these days. They don’t love the status quo. And there was just this political momentum that in general seemed to be against Democrats, favoring Republicans. Just dynamics we don’t see in Oregon a lot.
Miller: So this race, as you’re noting, had widely been seen as the best chance for a Republican to become an Oregon governor in 40 years. That’s when Vic Atiyeh was elected, the last time a Republican became Oregon governor, or in that case, was reelected Oregon governor. If it turns out that these results hold and Kotek wins, what’s that going to mean for Republicans in Oregon, going forward?
VanderHart: I think that is something a lot of Republicans are sort of asking themselves today. The GOP was talking about taking back the governor’s office, potentially even winning control of the chamber of the legislature, and none of that has come to pass. So on one hand, I think it makes you wonder, you know, if Republicans can’t win in a year like this – there’s an Independent candidate, there’s all these good things happening for Republicans – when can they win? Is it ever possible? But I think we also saw that this ‘red tsunami’ or ‘red wave’ that was predicted nationally, didn’t come to pass. So some of it is in the ether, it’s not just Oregon Republicans stinging today, but as often happens in a dispiriting year, they’re going to have to regroup and sort of come to some understanding of what’s next.
Miller: You mentioned the Independent candidate, this is obviously Betsy Johnson, who for years has been a Democratic member of the state senate, but seen as one of the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus and didn’t run as a Democrat, but as an Independent. After getting millions of dollars, a lot of it from Phil Knight, she got under 9% of the vote. Another way to put that is that she got way more votes than the difference between Drazan and Kotek vote totals. How big an impact does it seem that Betsy Johnson had on this race?
VanderHart: It will be very hard to get an exact number here. What we can say is every poll certainly I saw, in the run up to the election, did show that Betsy Johnson was winning more votes from Democratic voters than she was from Republicans. Not a lot, not overwhelming, but it did seem that Democrats were drifting toward Betsy Johnson more than Republicans were, and I think that’s some Drazan’s campaign actually came to count on. They told me yesterday that actually a 9% turnout for Johnson would be really good news for them, since it would likely steal disproportionately from that Democratic base. Even if that was the case, and I hope we get some really good post mortems on this, clearly not enough to overcome the significant advantages that Democrats just have built in Oregon over the decades.
Miller: You mentioned the Oregon legislature and the hope among Republicans that they might even be able to flip one of the two chambers. How clear is the picture right now, in terms of the makeup of the Oregon House and Oregon Senate?
VanderHart: We are still trying to dial in the numbers, but it is certain at this point, I think, that Democrats are going to retain their majorities in both the House and Senate. As I mentioned, this is something that has Republicans feeling really deflated today. They had a ton of money to spend this year, partly because they had two million in backing from Nike co-founder Phil Knight. They were targeting some extremely ambitious districts that have really big Democratic advantages, but they thought that they could be competitive just because of the dynamics of the year, and it just has not come to pass.
Republicans will pick up seats in both the House and Senate. It’s looking certain that they’re going to eliminate the supermajority in the Senate, which allows Democrats to pass all bills, including new taxes, without Republican votes. They are likely to eliminate the supermajority in the House as well, though I think we’re still waiting on some really close results. So they are not pleased with the result, but they did gain back some ground.
Miller: This takes us to Measure 113. One of the most lopsided votes in the election this year, it’s aimed at preventing legislative walkout, something that we talked about last month. And it passed with 68% of the votes, meaning that it was a measure that had really heavy support by major backers of the Democratic Party, like public employee unions. It didn’t just attract Democratic voters. There aren’t that many registered Democrats in the state. So what did happen?
VanderHart: As you noted, the public employee unions backed this. They paid for the signature gathering to get on the ballot and they’ve been really clear. They had polling that showed people liked the message this measure was conveying, which is that if lawmakers don’t show up to work, they should lose their jobs just like you do. This measure did not see any organized opposition, even though there were plenty of ways you could have poked holes in it. And the last I checked, the measure had prevailed in all but two Oregon counties, which I just think is so striking for something like walkouts, which tend to be incredibly partisan. People just responded to this notion that, ‘yeah, lawmakers should show up for work and if not, they deserve to be penalized.’
Miller: And just worth mentioning in passing, as you’re talking about that broad statewide support, this measure got way more support than the constitutional amendment to strike language allowing involuntary servitude or slavery from the Oregon Constitution. A striking fact. What could this measure, the success of Measure 113, mean in terms of the running of the legislature going forward?
VanderHart: It is such an interesting question because it’s not actually a very efficient way of stopping walkouts. It places this huge amount of power in the hands of the Senate President and the House Speaker who are going to be Democrats and who are going to now decide what absences are excused and what are not, so potentially could have a huge impact on the political careers of people who oppose them on things. It allows some walkouts up to 10 days, but there’s this weird argument that’s been made, that even if someone has 10 unexcused absences and are barred from actually holding office again, they would still be able to run for re-election, potentially win a race, and then just not be sworn in. So I just think we really need to iron out the wrinkles here and it might get complex and it’s probably going to get pretty messy.
Miller: Wouldn’t be the first time that voters passed something and then the wrinkles needed to be ironed out in the years to come.
VanderHart: Certainly not.
Miller: What else stood out to you in terms of other statewide ballot measures?
VanderHart: You mentioned the slavery language and the amount of opposition that got, though it still passed pretty handedly. Obviously, Measure 114 passing, that was the big gun safety measure that was on the ballot, is a big deal. I think it has national significance. We now have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, if not the strictest. And there’s just a ton of arguments that have emerged about what unintended consequences it might or might not have. This is really another one that Oregon is going to have to iron out in coming weeks and months.
Miller: I just want to turn briefly to congressional races. Two of them are right now, too close to call, the 5th and the 6th Districts. But as I noted in my intro, right now, Democrats have won or are winning four of the six districts. Is that a sign of successful redistricting on their part?
VanderHart: This was a year that looked like Republicans could even win three seats. They still could technically, though it’s not going that way. I don’t know that I’d call it successful. If you remember, when these maps were passed last year, they were sort of forced through by Democrats. There were a lot of protests by Republicans about Democrats not playing fair and about them shoving these gerrymandered maps down everyone’s throat, and here we have Republicans actually potentially gaining ground and getting a second member of Congress. So I don’t know that I’d call it successful. Maybe some people would point to them and say that they are more fair than a lot of people would suggest, because Republicans were able to compete. I’m not quite sure how to handicap it at this point.
Miller: Dirk, thanks very much.
VanderHart: My pleasure.
Miller: Dirk VanderHart is a political reporter for OPB.
We turn now to the comprehensive overhaul of Portland’s system of governance and elections. With more votes still to be counted, the ‘Yes’ side is now at 57%. So now what? How are all of these changes actually going to be implemented? Sol Mora joins us to answer these questions and more. She was the campaign manager for Portland United for Change which pushed for these charter amendments. Sol Mora, congratulations and welcome back.
Sol Mora: Thank you so much for having me.
Miller: Can you remind us briefly first, what the various changes, all lumped together are, that Portlanders have approved?
Mora: Absolutely. And I just want to start off by saying that the attempt to change Portland’s city government has failed seven times prior to this effort. So, I just want to take a moment to celebrate that last night Portlanders made history and approved Measure 26-228 and so we are updating our form of government and elections for the first time since 1913, which is major. The three changes that are included in this, is that one, we are moving to a system of professional management of city services. The city of Portland will have a city administrator for the first time. We are also moving our elections to geographic districts, meaning that East Portland and every part of the city will have guaranteed geographic representation, with multiple elected officials representing their part of the city. And lastly, we will also have ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates on their ballot for our elections.
Miller: As you noted, seven times since 1913, almost 110 years ago, Portlanders have had the option on their ballots to change the charter and seven times they’ve said no. And then last night, or in the last couple of weeks as they filled out their ballots, they said ‘Yes.’ What do you think made the difference this time?
Mora: I think that this is a win that was truly powered by the people of our beloved city. The Charter Commission did their due diligence of making sure that Portlanders were heard in the community engagement process that shaped this measure. And so I think it truly shows that when you have processes that center community voices and their lived experiences, you’re able to have a win in a campaign that is truly powered by the people. So I think it goes back to the Charter Commission and the multi-year effort that this measure included, of making sure that Portlanders were at the root of what they wanted their city to look like.
Miller: Can you give us a sense now for the overall timeline for the implementation of these changes?
Mora: Absolutely. The transition period will be about two to three years, and I do want to mention that today, the application for the Independent Districting Commission went live, and it closes a month from now. This is the independent body that is going to draw the district lines in Portland. And so they will be seated by January of 2023, and draw those districts over the course of a couple of months. And so what that means is that in November of 2024, we will have the first election with geographic districts using ranked choice voting and all 12 City Council seats will be up at the same time. And then following that, in January of 2025, all of those representatives and elected officials will enter the new form of government with a new city administrator.
Miller: Am I right, that in order to eventually space out these elections, half of the city councilors who are elected - in just two years from now in 2024 - they’ll have just two year terms and the other half will have a full four year term?
Mora: That is true. Yes. So part of this measure includes staggering the elections. And so again, all of the seats will be up at the same time in November of 2024 and two of those districts will have two year terms. The other two districts will have four year terms to ensure that the staggering is effective.
Miller: You noted that as of today, Portlanders can sign up to do this volunteer civic duty of helping to create the map for these four new districts. What are their guidelines? I mean, what have voters told them they have to consider as they create districts?
Mora: Yeah, it’s been really amazing because the Charter Commission made sure that this process had to be community-centered. That was one of their guiding principles that they outlined for this independent districting commission to engage Portlanders in that conversation. That’s so crucial about how communities of interest will be kept together when drawing those maps. So, there will be a very robust opportunity for all Portlanders to get to weigh in and determine what those district lines look like.
On a national scale, there are very strict rules when it comes to drawing districts. And so you need to make sure that those districts are compact, right? You have to make sure that you are honoring those geographic boundaries as much as possible. There’s definitely a lot that goes into the process, but I would definitely just encourage everyone out there to apply to be on this commission and to keep your eye out for when opportunities to participate arise.
Miller: I’m going back to the question about the first elections to be run this way. So even though Rene Gonzalez seems to have won a seat on the city council – and we’ll talk to him in just a few minutes about that – that because voters approve the charter changes, he will have to run again in just two years?
Mora: Yes, that is true.
Miller: Is two years enough time for Multnomah County election officials to buy and vet and implement and test a whole new election system, given that no city of Portland’s size in the whole country has a system quite like what voters just approved.
Mora: I think one of the biggest benefits to having a measure come out of a city process like what the Charter Commission was able to do, is that this topic of implementation, the technical resources that would be needed, it has been a conversation for the past 18 months. The City of Portland and all of those involved at the elections office have been strategizing and thinking about and preparing for implementation. So we feel very confident that this will be a smooth process. And I also want to mention that when it comes to voter education, Portland United for Change, the campaign to pass this measure, has had over 100 organizations and supporters. And so all of those different civic groups are ready to ensure that Portlanders are up to speed on these changes and can learn what it feels like to vote under this new system. So we are definitely still here and ready to help with that transition.
Miller: When do you imagine the new position, the city administrator, will be in place?
Mora: I imagine that once those 12 city councilors are entering their term, that is when they will go through that process. Because it is collaborative, the Mayor is the individual who will nominate the city administrator and that will be approved by the city council. So I imagine that once they’re actually in their term, they will begin that process and open up different pathways for people to get to weigh in on what qualifications they want that city administrator to have. I know that’s been a huge question for Portlanders.
Miller: How much power do members of the current city council have to slow down the entire process you’ve just outlined?
Mora: I will say that the will of the people is something that has prevailed, and that is something we’ve seen across this campaign, right? There were individuals that tried to sow doubt in Portlanders, but ultimately this measure passed. And I think it’s super exciting to see that all of these people that are so passionate about city government reform, are going to continue to be involved in this process and make sure that implementation is effective. So I would say that the people are the individuals who hold our elected officials accountable and we are going to make sure that this process is seamless.
Miller: If I understand what you said and what you didn’t say, it’s that it’s up to voters to make sure that the current city council members don’t delay this process, not that the members of city council don’t have the power themselves to delay it?
Mora: I do think that in some ways, city council members currently do have different ways that they can try to slow down the process. However, I think ultimately it is the power of the people in the community to put that pressure on elected officials and really have all of us work together, seeing now that the measure did pass.
Miller: Sol Mora, thanks very much.
Mora: Thank you so much.
Miller: Sol Mora was the campaign manager for the Portland United for Change group, which pushed for the charter amendments.
We end our election wrap up right now with Rene Gonzalez, at last count, he had won 54% of the vote in his race for City Council. Rene Gonzalez, congratulations and welcome back.
Rene Gonzalez: Thanks so much for having me.
Miller: Have you talked to Jo Ann Hardesty yet?
Gonzalez: We have just exchanged voicemail messages and she just called to congratulate me.
Miller: So she has conceded to you.
Gonzalez: That is correct.
Miller: I had not heard that yet. So how are you feeling right now?
Gonzalez: There was a lot of sacrifice from family, friends and supporters to get us here. So a sense of celebration there. A little bit tired and I’m in bad need of a good bike ride and maybe a soccer match to recharge the energy, but feeling really good.
Miller: What do you think made the difference for you and your campaign?
Gonzalez: We trusted our eyes, what we were seeing on the streets of Portland and we took at face value what voters were telling us. They don’t feel as safe as they used to in this beautiful city. And they were really concerned about our inability to address the challenges of the unsheltered and homelessness. And so we kept it real focused on those two things.
Miller: As we were just hearing, this was a weird election for you in particular because you were on the ballot as a candidate, but the length of time you’re going to be elected for, if you won, was also on the ballot. And voters, not directly to you, but they said, ‘Everybody, change the system,’ meaning that you have two years in this position. Are you interested in being a member of a 12 person council without any executive power? In other words, are you interested in running again in two years for a very different job?
Gonzalez: We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I think what’s gonna come from the Mayor here, shortly, will be a sort of separating. We’ve got two buckets, we’ve got to implement charter reform as approved by the voters, and we also have to keep our eye on the ball of crime and homelessness, simultaneously. And these are two extremely heavy lifts. So I’m going to stay real focused on the mandate I think I was elected with, on crime and homelessness and to support what the voters just approved. We need to do both at the same time. And then we’ll see how things shake out as to what’s next two years from now.
Miller: Speaking of shaking out, after an election, the mayor often rejiggers bureaus. What bureaus would you most want?
Gonzalez: Let’s look forward to what the mayor may be announcing here shortly on that, but certainly anything that directly ties to supporting the building of affordable housing, directly or indirectly, I would be interested in being a part of. And there are two specifics on criminal justice I would love to be involved in. One, we’ve been really looking at a municipal court, to re-establish that, in the city of Portland, just to address low level crimes, and whether we do that at the city level, or we work through what’s called LSPCC with the county. It’s technically not a bureau assignment, but it is a commissioner assignment that Commissioner Hardesty currently has. I’m really interested in being involved in that as well. But it gets back to crime and homelessness. Anything that touches those two directly or indirectly, I would be very interested in.
Miller: We just have 20 seconds left. Are you saying that we are going to hear from the mayor soon about new bureau assignments?
Gonzalez: I think there’s just gonna be some communications coming about how we’re gonna pursue charter reform implementation and it will have some indirect impacts on how bureaus might be assigned. So I won’t steal their thunder, but just keep your ears open for that.
Miller: We will pay attention to that. Rene Gonzalez, thanks very much for your time and congratulations again.
Gonzalez: Thank you so much.
Miller: That’s Rene Gonzalez. With more ballots to be counted, he has a commanding lead in his race for a seat on the Portland city council.
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