Chamber announces endorsements for November 2024 election

This week Portlanders will receive their ballots for the most important city and county elections in decades. And for the third straight election voters will head to the polls with extremely high levels of frustration with the same crises our local leaders have told us they have been working to solve for well over a decade. Voters will fill out their ballots with the largest number of houseless people living on our streets, per capita, in the nation; with deep concerns about the safety of their neighborhoods, with fentanyl overdoses at an all-time high, and a city that continues to become more and more unaffordable due to the high cost of taxes and housing. Most worrisome is that pessimism is becoming entrenched as voters continue to watch our local leaders point fingers rather than work together to deliver basic services.

Over the past two years the city council, acting with a clear mandate for change, has made tremendous progress putting a foundation in place to finally get these problems under control, restore Portland’s livability and affordability, and begin building our city back for the next generation. Thanks to Portland voters we have elected pragmatic, common sense leaders, who have slowly but surely been turning things around.

Ballots will look unlike anything voters have ever seen before and they will be asked to rank six candidates from a vast pool. Thankfully, dozens of Portlanders have risen to the challenge, stepped up to lead, and voters in all four of our new districts have an opportunity to keep the change they have been demanding on track and stand up against the interest groups who continue to stand in the way of change. Given the complexity of the city’s new voting system, we are taking the unprecedented step of not just telling you which candidates to support, but also how to rank them so you gain the maximum impact from your ranked votes.

The Chamber has joined the United for Portland coalition and encourages you to support their endorsed candidates. United for Portland has brought together a diverse cross section of organizations and leaders committed to rejecting divisive ideological performers by electing pragmatic problem-solvers to lead our county and city governments.

For a detailed and transparent explanation of how the United for Portland coalition made its endorsement decisions, please read more on their website.

We encourage you to watch and share this video on how single transferable ranked choice voting works. The best way to explain this new system is with visual aids, and we believe this is the video that explains it the most clearly.

The candidates below are committed to getting things done, collaborating toward pragmatic effective solutions, prioritizing basic services, and have the strength of their convictions to lead our community forward. Here’s the bottom line – the candidates listed here, throughout their careers have demonstrated they have the experience and leadership to drive the change needed to restore Portland’s livability and reputation. These candidates stand in stark contrast to inexperienced ideological performers who are committed to protecting the status quo.

For more information, read The Oregonian’s city council endorsements in Districts 1 and 2, and Districts 3 and 4. Eleven of the twelve candidates endorsed by The Oregonian are endorsed by United for Portland. The only exception is in District 1.