Incumbents take early leads in Portland City Council races
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Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Incumbents jumped out to early leads in two Portland City Council races, per preliminary returns, and Multnomah County races began to take shape as election results rolled in.
Why it matters: City Council appeared poised to remain unchanged, a local ballot measure seemed headed to failure and two county races were too close to call as of midnight Wednesday.
- This is the city's second ranked-choice voting election and the county's first, which requires multiple rounds of vote tallying.
City Council District 3
After 19 rounds of counting, incumbents Steve Novick, Tiffany Koyama Lane and Angelita Morillo led the field.
- Twenty-one candidates competed for three District 3 seats representing much of inner Southeast Portland and parts of Northeast Portland along Sandy Boulevard.
City Council District 4
Incumbents Olivia Clark, Eric Zimmerman and Mitch Green led the field after 11 rounds of counting.
- In District 4, 12 candidates competed for three seats representing Portland's west side and the Sellwood, Eastmoreland and Westmoreland neighborhoods.
Multnomah County board of commissioners, District 2
After five rounds of counting, Bri Williams had 53% of the vote.
- Seven candidates competed for the District 2 seat on the Multnomah County board of commissioners, representing much of North and Northeast Portland.
Multnomah County chair
Shannon Singleton had 56% of the vote after two rounds of counting,
- Three candidates — Julia Brim-Edwards, Sharon Meieran and Singleton — were running for the county's top spot.
Measure 26-267
Portland's only local measure on the ballot, known as the "Your 2 Cents" initiative, saw 66% voting "no" as of midnight.
- The measure would let residents propose and vote on projects funded by 2% of the city's discretionary fund, or roughly $16 million annually. Questions remained about how the measure would actually work.
How it works: Since all candidate races will be decided by ranked-choice voting, final results may not be known for a while.
- In City Council races, which have three winners each, candidates receiving more than 25% of the vote are declared winners.
- In the two county races, a candidate who receives more than half the votes in a round wins.
What's next: The next round of results is expected at 6pm Wednesday.
Editor's note: This is a developing story and will be updated.