Today is National Try Not to Be Smug Day, but it’s a little hard when we’ve got the first openly gay female senator, support for same-sex marriage, and Obama all of a sudden saying things about “a warming planet.” Anyway, we all know the outcome of the presidential election and the mayor’s race, but here’s the rundown on the rest of the campaigns in Oregon.
First of all, 81 percent of the state voted, but Multnomah County had the second-lowest turnout in the state: 53 percent now the updated results show that 80 percent of Multnomah County voted! Woo! The state went 53 percent for Obama and 7.7 percent of people wrote in a mayor in the Portland election—that’s 14,660 people who didn’t want to vote for Charlie Hales or Jefferson Smith.
Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown was reelected with 50.7 percent to 44 percent over Republican challenger Knute Buehler in a tough race and Democrats also kept their positions as State Treasurer (Ted Wheeler), Attorney General (Ellen Rosenblum), and Labor Commissioner (Brad Avakian).
Democrats are expected to take a majority in the Oregon House (which was evenly split last session) and maintain their majority in the Senate.
So State Republican Party chair Allen Alley’s prediction at the Republican election shindig last night that Oregon would be the “first red state on the West Coast”: Not so accurate.
As for measures, the real estate transfer tax ban passed and the estate tax ban failed. No surprise, but the gillnetting ban and pro-casino measure also failed. Marijuana legalization Measure 80 failed by a surprisingly slim margin—nine percent—seeing as there wasn’t a real, professional campaign staged for the plan.
Locally, Amanda Fritz won the city council seat race by a surprisingly wide margin—18 percent.
The local school bond passed, as did the arts tax. The tweaks to the police and firefighter pension systems also won.
Vancouver voted rejected a light-rail funding measure, which leaves Columbia River Crossing funding in question.
You can view the Oregon election results here and county results here!
Eight years ago, anti-gay marriage ballot measures helped turn out conservative voters and defeat the Democrat Presidential candidate. This year, we have a president who endorsed gay marriage, and he was just re-elected.
Multnomah County was 75% Obama and 21% Romney, according to that link. That’s the detail I was looking for – posting it here for the lazy.
“but Multnomah County had the second-lowest turnout in the state: 53 percent. “
We can vote by MAIL here. Why are people so fucking lazy about voting?
I think you might have seen an aged ballot return sheet Ms. Mirk. The one you linked to shows an overall ballot return rate of 81%, with MultCo at 80.2%.
(Sorry to pick nits again.)
With regards to voting, I don’t think it’s laziness. I think it’s disillusionment with our government. Free Cascadia! http://cascadianow.org
53%? In all sincerity, fuck you. If you want to claim your hipster disillusionment and detachment, fine but I never fucking want to hear you bitching about any political issue. As another commenter pointed you can fucking vote by MAIL here..how fucking lazy and emo are you if you can’t even commit to that? Obama won on electoral votes and you did precious little to contribute (because of how it works) so stop fucking patting yourself on the back.