“Portland doesn’t have a money problem. It has a leadership problem. The next election is our chance to change that.”
That’s a statement on the homepage of a new coalition, Go Portland Go, which filed as a political action committee (PAC) with the state in April. Go Portland Go says it is pooling resources behind “leaders who can actually run a progressive city.”
But despite using seemingly progressive terminology and calling itself a “grassroots coalition,” the effort is largely backed by Portland’s moneyed political actors, many of whom have for years bankrolled fights against progressive policy. Go Portland Go’s political and financial ties raise questions over its true aims.
Go Portland Go’s Funding and Ties to Partnership for Progress
Partnership for Progress, a nonprofit political advocacy group registered with the state as a public benefit corporation, is the main funder of Go Portland Go. Founded in early 2025, Partnership for Progress has strongly pushed against policies brought by progressive councilors, advocated for homeless camp sweeps and treatment-first approaches, spoken out against the Preschool For All tax on high-income earners, and advocated for increased funding for police—including for a recent, failed ballot initiative to move climate dollars to hire more sworn officers.
Partnership for Progress donated $32,000 to the new effort, Go Portland Go, in June, according to state records. The organizations also share some leadership; Partnership for Progress co-leader Vadim Mozyrsky also sits on the steering committee for Go Portland Go. The group is also listed as a coalition member on Go Portland Go’s website.
Go Portland Go’s second-highest donor is local billionaire and Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle, who donated $25,000 in June, the latest in his consistent donations to conservative causes. Boyle recently donated $100,000 to the Community Safety Coalition—a failed effort to move Portland Clean Energy Fund dollars to hire more police officers. In 2023, he gave $150,000 to a group lobbying to dismantle Measure 110, the state law that decriminalized possession of controlled substances and began to build a network of statewide treatment centers for people with substance use disorders. Boyle also donated $125,000 to Betsy Johnson, the conservative independent candidate for governor, in 2021.
According to state records, Go Portland Go has received more than $130,000 in contributions. On its website, the group claims it is primarily a volunteer organization, and small donors make up the bulk of its budget.
“The small budget we do have is funded by a diverse group of supporters,” its website reads. “80% of our donors contributed between $10 and $1000. The rest is from community leaders and business owners who are committed to our mission of making Portland the model of progressive government.”
Go Portland Go’s Stated Ideologies
Amid a trend across the nation that sees many Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates winning races, Go Portland Go’s leadership appears to be attempting to redefine progressive politics in Portland and shift the progressive ecosystem closer to the political center and away from the values espoused by the DSA.
Over the past year, the mailing list of the coalition’s main financial supporter, Partnership for Progress, has featured satirical, AI-generated images that spin narratives of Portland in decline, broadly blaming six progressive councilors—particularly Angelita Morillo, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Mitch Green, and Sameer Kanal, the four DSA members—for what they perceive as the poor state of the city. Its 2025 impact report boasts that the organization “protected the Multnomah County DA’s budget,” saved the city program that sweeps homeless Portlanders after progressive councilors proposed a budget cut, and prompted Governor Tina Kotek to call for a pause in collecting taxes for the county Preschool for All program.
Go Portland Go’s website says it’s “not generally” against the DSA, saying the title means a lot of different things to different people. The site outlines its interpretation of DSA policy positions, which “range from abolishing police and prisons to replacing capitalism with an alternative economic system to providing healthcare for all,” adding that “we believe extreme ideology is not the pathway to moving Portland forward. If a DSA candidate meets our endorsement criteria, we will endorse them.”
However, Go Portland Go also outlines its candidate endorsement criteria, which would effectively prevent DSA-aligned candidates from earning endorsement: “1. Prioritize local issues over national. 2. Fund public safety. Yes, including the police. 3. Support businesses. Small, medium, AND large. 4. Make Portland more affordable. Reduce red tape, fees, and taxes. 5. Collaborate, compromise, and solve real problems.”
Lani Haywood, one of two Go Portland Go directors, said in a statement to the Mercury that the coalition “didn’t realize advocating for a city that works would be controversial.”
Haywood said the idea came out of a real sense of frustration in the community, and a deep belief in Portland.
“What we heard is that there is a real lack of basic solutions and progress within the city—and their voices are not being heard,” Haywood said. “We created Go Portland Go to fill that void. Individuals, businesses, and organizations are signing up daily to join, because they want to live and work in a city that works—is safe, accountable, and economically stable—a city that can at least run at a foundational level.
Haywood said Portland is at the bottom on the index for healthy cities of similar size.
“There are interesting ideas and momentum around the country in cities where there are a lot more resources and ideas on how to split up the pie,” Haywood said. “In Portland, we need to learn how to bake pies.”
Local Businesses Sign On to Support
The Go Portland Go coalition’s website boasts a number of what they call coalition members, a list of individuals, businesses, and organizations who have signed on to show support for the PAC.
Restaurants make up a significant portion of those businesses. Among them are Gabriel Rucker and Andy Fortgang’s famed Le Pigeon, along with sister restaurant Canard and wine shop Flor Wines. Fortgang also appeared in an Instagram post promoting Go Portland Go.
Fortgang told the Mercury Friday that he decided to join Go Portland Go for a solution to what he called “not always a focus on practical problem solving in local government.”
“Ideas are not solutions, and taglines are not solutions, and [city council is] not focusing so much on policy, but instead focusing on viewpoints and sides,” he said. “To make a restaurant operate, you have to be really pragmatic, and there are tough choices that have to be made that aren’t always comfortable and aren’t always the most politically correct thing to say or do,” he said. “We stopped using [our outdoor] space because there were just too many instances of our employees or our guests being yelled at, attacked, bothered by people on the street.”
Fortgang disagreed with the idea that Go Portland Go’s promises of progressive government were antithetical to the issues Partnership for Portland supports. “I don’t know that there’s any member of City Council that I wouldn’t classify as progressive… I see that some have stances that are more to the left or more to the center than others,” he said.
Fortgang clashed with progressive city councilors earlier this year during discussions regarding a citywide foie gras ban, which was sponsored by progressive councilors Mitch Green and later co-sponsored by Angelita Morillo, Tiffany Koyama Lane, and Council President Jamie Dunphy.
“Our leaders are debating a ban on foie gras when they should be reducing homelessness and 911 response times,” reads Go Portland Go’s site.
Dan Gold, co-owner of Sebastiano’s, another coalition member, also spoke of a desire for reality-based solutions.
“Everyone’s really well-intentioned in Portland, but then we hit scenarios where you kind of have to deal with reality on reality’s terms, and sometimes the mission tends to fall apart, but [Go Portland Go’s] five pillars of homelessness and behavioral health, public safety and policing reform, city governance and competence, economic vitality and small business climate, and public space stewardship—to me, those are all very well thought out and important to tackle,” he said.
Kachka is also on the list, with owner Bonnie Morales also appearing on Go Portland Go’s Instagram page; Morales was unavailable to speak with the Mercury as of press time. Other restaurants who have signed on include Allora, Mother’s Bistro, Fields Bar and Grill, Papa Haydn, and Wilf’s, the jazz lounge at Union Station. Breakside Brewery and Freeland Spirits also appear on the list.
Earl Ninsom’s constellation of Thai restaurants—Eem, Langbaan, Hat Yai, Paadee, Phuket Cafe, and OK Chicken & Khao Soi (the latter was erroneously listed as two separate restaurants on the Go Portland Go website)—all appeared on the coalition’s list as of Friday, August 28. But after the Mercury asked about the restaurant’s group decision to join, Ninsom said the company would be withdrawing its support.
“When I listened to them, it’s focusing on using the budget for housing the homeless, making the city clean and inviting for residents and tourists,” Ninsom wrote in an August 28 text message. He added that after he received a message from his business partner, Eric Nelson, “it seemed like the organization wasn’t [doing] what they understood it to be doing.”
By that evening, Ninsom’s restaurants had disappeared from the site.
Restaurants aren’t the only entities signing onto Go Portland Go. Lance Orton is the executive director of the religious, recovery-first homeless services provider City Team who also sat on the board of Mayor Keith Wilson’s nonprofit, Shelter Portland. Portland songwriter Thomas Lauderdale and his band Pink Martini signed on too, as did Mike Thelin, a business consultant and founder of Feast Portland. The types of businesses run the gamut: pickleball venue the People’s Courts, concert promoter Monqui Presents, ceramics studio the Mud Room, and hair removal service the Wax Shack also signed on. Among the other signatories are Eric Hunter, president and CEO of CareOregon; longtime real estate developer Homer Williams, the founder of re-entry Oregon Harbor of Hope; and Women’s Venture Capital Fund, led by Go Portland Go steering committee member Edith Dorsen.
The Mercury reached out to several individuals and businesses on the list, including Papa Haydn, the People’s Courts, Mike Thelin, and the Mud Room, but had not received a response as of publication.
Go Portland Go leadership’s ties to problematic group chat
Partnership for Progress is closely connected to Portland power players with a history of assailing progressive elected officials. One person on Go Portland Go’s steering committee, Vikki Payne, made news earlier this year when the Mercury reported on a series of images showing a group chat between local real estate broker Brian Owendoff and other local political activists using racist and homophobic slurs about progressive councilors of color. The Mercury also reported on Payne in August 2025 after she was fired from Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards’ office, following scrutiny about conflicts of interest and political organizing during working hours.
In those messages, Owendoff—who has had front row seats at Partnership for Progress events in the past—called Councilor Morillo, a Paraguayan immigrant, a “burrito,” saying she was “playing race card” when she spoke about her experience on a City Council that she said had long excluded people of color from public service.
There is no evidence that Owendoff, the real estate broker behind the Ritz Carlton, is personally connected to the Go Portland Go campaign. But in the chat with Owendoff, Payne also used racialized stereotypes to disparage progressives, writing that Councilor Koyama Lane “…is Japanese, the elites of the Asians.” Payne told the Mercury that when discussing race and identity politics, an Asian friend had told her there is a tier to racism about Asian people, and her South Asian friends consider themselves to be “at the bottom of that totem pole.”
Fiscal supporters of the Go Portland Go campaign have not been shy about the reasons for their work. Bob Weinstein, one of two people in Partnership for Progress’ top leadership, also appeared in the Mercury’s story about the group chat images. Weinstein was in a separate chat titled “Partnership” alongside Owendoff and others, texting about the organization.
Partnership for Progress later distanced itself from Owendoff in a press release, saying he “is not, and has never been, a principal, officer, agent, representative, employee, or financial contributor to Partnership for Progress. He does not speak for us, nor does he act on behalf of our organization in any capacity.”
But the chat gives insight into the group’s aims of organizing opposition to progressive city councilors. In the chat, Weinstein drew attention to an anonymous comment on a Willamette Week article that read, “Morillo and her DSA cohort are destined to fail. It’s the middle part that’s gonna suck. Already the money is organizing opposition. Check out Partnership for Progress organization.”
Reached by phone Saturday, Weinstein declined to answer the Mercury’s questions about Partnership for Progress’ relationship to the Go Portland Go Campaign. Mozyrsky did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
