By State Representative Rob Nosse
Labor Day is considered the start of the election season that culminates in November. Most candidates have been campaigning a lot longer. Your ballot needs to be postmarked by Tuesday, November 3, Election Day, in order to be counted. In case you forgot, the US Supreme Court did rebuke President Trump when it comes to voting by mail. Ballots postmarked on or before November 3 will be counted even if they arrive at the county election office some time shortly thereafter.
There are for sure worries that President Trump will continue to try to make mail-in voting harder, but most analysts do not think that those efforts will pan out.
So now that I got that out of the way here is what I think about the elections in our state and region so far.
I am pretty confident that US Senator Jeff Merkley will be reelected. The question is will enough Democrats challenging Republicans in other states win their races and give Senator Merkley a chance to be in charge. States like North Carolina, Michigan, Maine, Ohio and even Texas and Alaska are all in play, so we will see.
Most pundits are forecasting that the US House of Representatives will be controlled by the Democrats, but it has been up and down because of redistricting in both red and blue states, as well as the changes that the US Supreme Court case out of Louisiana made with regard to voting rights and the ability to draw congressional districts so that a racial minority/African American has a chance at winning in a southern state.
Oregon has six congressional districts and only the vast district for eastern Oregon is represented by a Republican. The other five are represented by Democrats. I don’t think anyone seriously thinks these districts are in danger of being lost to a Republican, but Democrats will still have to do the work and turn out their voters, especially for the seats held by Bynum, Salinas and Hoyle.
Looking statewide, does anyone seriously think that Governor Tina Kotek is not going to be re-elected? The last time we elected a Republican governor in this state was in the 1980s. State Senator Christine Drazan thinks this could be the year to break that streak given that the state’s challenges with school performance, housing costs, behavioral health, addiction and economic development have not gotten much better under the current governor. These are hard problems to solve. I think Governor Kotek just needs more time and another term to get all these things turned around, and she will. I have known her for a long time. She is darn capable. Meanwhile, while I like Drazan personally, she is pretty conservative, especially for Oregon, and seems incapable of standing up to President Trump. President Trump’s policies are contributing to our state’s problems and pretending that they are not or trying to change the subject is not being honest about what we are dealing with here. You cannot outrun your President.
Meanwhile the state legislature, my realm, has several state senate elections that could be contentious, along with a few state representative races that could be nail biters. I don’t think anyone seriously thinks that Democrats will lose control of the legislature. President Trump is very unpopular and when the President in power is unpopular the other party does well in the midterms. We Democrats will see if we can expand our majorities or just hold on to what we have presently.
Which brings me to the County. We will have our first county chair race here in Multnomah County with rank choice voting. Jessica Vega Pedersen decided not to run for a second term as the County Chair. I hate to say this, but I think she would have lost. Will Julia Brim-Edwards or Shannon Singleton, both currently serving as board members be able to promote or does Sharon Meieran, who lost to Vega Pedersen a few years ago, eek out the win?
So that just leaves us with the Portland City Council and the elections in District 3 and District 4. We have all been living under the tie—six more progressive/DSA (Democratic Socialist of America) aligned candidates who refer to themselves as Peacock vs the six slightly less progressive, and in my opinion, less ideologically rigid members of the council who, while aligned, do not necessarily have a name or always strive to vote the same way.
There are lots of candidates in both races, especially District 3. Meanwhile we have the worst version of ranked choice voting that has been designed. If a candidate gets 25 percent of the vote they win and then your votes for other candidates are distributed. Any candidate who is an incumbent can easily get 25 percent of the vote, making it hard for a challenger to win. In District 3, where there are SO MANY candidates, I think all three incumbents could retain their seats. Maybe one of the two new candidates gets traction and beats one of the incumbents? Who is going to run the negative campaign that fires an incumbent and then helps one of the many unknown candidates get 25 percent of the vote? We will see.
It is going to get a lot more interesting so stay tuned. Meanwhile I am glad I am unopposed.
