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Direct Headline: Oregon’s close governor’s race is a referendum on Portland
Economist Oct 20th 2022
....Worsening homelessness in Democratic strongholds is becoming a political liability.... For years, liberal cities in the U.S have tolerated people living in tents in parks and public spaces, but increasingly leaders in places like Portland, Oregon, New York and Seattle are removing encampments and pushing other strict measures that would've been unheard of a few years ago.....Christine Drazan, the Republican running for governor in Oregon, opens (via a widespread campaign ad) with a woman recounting how she was held at knifepoint by a homeless man in Portland. It was only thanks to the police that she survived, she tells the camera, before warning that Kate Brown, the current Democratic governor, and Tina Kotek, the Democratic candidate to replace her, are “releasing criminals” and making Oregonians “less safe”....
....Portland, the state’s biggest city, is an avatar of the Pacific north-west’s particular brand of progressive. Yet the governor’s race is surprisingly close for a state that Joe Biden won by 16 points. Polls suggest that Ms Drazan, formerly the top Republican in Oregon’s House of Representatives, has a slight edge over Ms Kotek, that body’s former Speaker. Ms Drazan could become Oregon’s first Republican governor since Ronald Reagan was president....There are two main reasons for this. First, a third candidate, Betsy Johnson, is splitting the vote. Before renouncing her party to run as an independent, Ms Johnson spent 15 years as a conservative Democrat in the state legislature. Her politics resemble those of Joe Manchin, the senator for West Virginia. She supports abortion rights, but annoys more-liberal Democrats by arguing for gun rights and blocking environmental regulation. Ms Johnson has benefited from the beneficence of Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike and Oregon’s richest man, who poured nearly $4m into her campaign (he recently donated $1m to Ms Drazan too). Ms Johnson’s campaign is pulling votes from Ms Kotek, as she courts Oregon’s many unaffiliated voters and Democrats looking for a change.....
....Second, the race has become a referendum on Portland, which is struggling with violent crime, street homelessness and drug addiction..... fear and resentment towards Democrats, who run all levels of state government. But it plays on the real worries of Oregonians about Portland’s deterioration. Nearly three-quarters of likely voters polled by the Oregonian in September said they view the city negatively. Ms Brown, the outgoing governor, is the least popular governor in America. Ms Johnson and Ms Drazan are trying their best to paint Ms Kotek as her political doppelganger....Worsening homelessness, which voters say is the most important problem facing the state, has made change more appealing to habitual Democrats. The homeless population of Multnomah County, which includes Portland, grew by 30% between 2019 and 2022, to roughly 5,200 people. Most of the growth has been among those who sleep outside. Rising housing costs and the closure of shelters during the pandemic have pushed more people onto the streets....
....The proliferation of tent encampments in Portland’s Old Town neighbourhood near the city centre has blocked pavements, scattered rubbish and made people’s struggles with addiction more visible. Portland Clean and Safe, a programme that employs formerly homeless people to clean downtown, disposed of more than 180,000 needles in 2021, up from 5,000 in 2014. Anthony McDougald, one of the programme’s cleaners, often visits his brother who still lives on the street. “At one point you couldn’t get through the sidewalk because of everybody’s tent.."..."....and for a lot of people that’s very dystopian.....”
....Oregon’s Democrats are seeing what happens when elected officials demote public safety to a secondary concern. Local Democrats took chants to “defund the police” to heart in 2020...... The cuts came at a particularly inopportune time. For decades Portland was one of America’s safest cities. But the murder rate spiked there in 2020, as it did in cities across the country.....The cuts worsened a staffing shortage .... the loss of many officers following the city’s violent protests in summer of 2020. .... extremists flocked to Portland to stir up trouble....buildings were set on fire ........The political violence that tarred Portland’s peaceful protests is still on voters’ minds. About 70% of Portland voters say the demonstrations damaged public safety, and fully half suggest that they actually harmed racial unity....
...Portland’s struggles matter beyond state lines. West-coast cities from San Diego to Seattle seem unsure what to do about sky-high housing costs, tent encampments and open-air drug markets. These are also political problems for Democrats, who run America’s big cities......The growth of encampments is a rebuke to progressive politicians out to prove that their policies make life better and more equal for everyone.....The governor’s race in Oregon will test whether a left-leaning state will punish Democrats for problems that have mushroomed on their watch. If Mr Wheeler’s prediction is right, liberals elsewhere may want to pay attention....
https://www.economist.com/united-st...se-governors-race-is-a-referendum-on-portland
Direct Headline: Nike co-founder Phil Knight declares war on Democrats in Oregon
Knight has invested millions into Democrat Tina Kotek's opponents, and polls show a Republican lead
By Anders Hagstrom October 16, 2022
....Nike co-founder Phil Knight said he will do anything to block Democrats from keeping their hold on Oregon's gubernatorial seat Saturday....Knight, 84, has poured cash into the campaigns of Democrat Tina Kotek's opponents in the governors race. He helped to kickstart a campaign from Betsy Johnson, a former Democrat running as an independent, who is serving as a major spoiler for Kotek....Johnson's candidacy is giving Republican (Christine) Drazan the opportunity she needs in a liberal electorate no longer confident in the state's recent far-left policies....Knight went on to describe himself as "an anti-Tina person," to NYT....
....Oregon has not elected a Republican governor since 1982.....FiveThirtyEight has Drazan at a 3-point lead over Kotek, with 37.4% and 34.3% respectively. Meanwhile, Johnson sits at just 16.4% support....Drazan has styled herself as a moderate Republican in the race, focusing heavily on the issues of crime and homelessness....."Tina Kotek and Betsy Johnson have been driving Kate Brown's agenda for years. They've led Oregon down the wrong path....(have not) fixed anything...(and) made things worse..... My roadmap for Oregon cleans up our streets, stops the tax increases, and makes life more affordable for Oregon families...."
...But Johnson has pushed back against the "spoiler" designation, telling crowd members at a campaign appearance she is "not the spoiler candidate" and is "in this to win," ...Johnson was in Oregon's statehouse for 20 years as a Democrat before she quit the party in 2021 to run as an unaffiliated candidate for governor....Democrat Kate Brown has been Oregon's governor since 2015....(and) is not running again in 2022 due to term limits....Nike's co-founder, Knight, has donated at least $3.75 million to Johnson's campaign and $1 million to Drazan's campaign, according to the AP...Knight has a long history of clashing with Oregon lawmakers....
...Mr. Knight, Oregon’s richest man, is now the largest single contributor to both Ms. Johnson and Ms. Drazan. His largess has helped turn the race into a tossup, forcing Democrats to divert money in a bid to retain the governor’s office....Mr. Knight, who rarely speaks with reporters, said in an interview on Thursday that he would do whatever he could to stop Ms. Kotek from becoming governor, describing himself as “an anti-Tina person.”...Ms. Kotek, a former State House speaker, is in trouble because of a cocktail of political maladies and a backlash against Gov. Kate Brown, who polls show is the country’s least popular governor. Next week, Ms. Kotek’s own conduct in Salem will be scrutinized by a legislative committee after one of her former caucus colleagues accused her of making threats to win support for legislation she wanted to pass....
....Mr. Knight, in the interview, said he had abandoned Ms. Johnson’s campaign because she could not “get enough undecided voters to make up the difference” with Ms. Kotek and Ms. Drazan...Asked if serving as a financial benefactor for an anti-abortion politician ran counter to his company’s well-manicured image as a champion of social justice causes, he replied: “Nike has good leadership. They make choices, whatever they want, but I think I’m more conservative than Nike.” Mr. Knight is the chairman emeritus of Nike’s board but does not run the company day to day.....
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nike-co-founder-phil-knight-declares-war-democrats-oregon
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-wo...ht-tina-kotek-betsy-johnson-christinze-drazan
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/15/us/politics/kotek-drazan-oregon-governor.html
Economist Oct 20th 2022
....Worsening homelessness in Democratic strongholds is becoming a political liability.... For years, liberal cities in the U.S have tolerated people living in tents in parks and public spaces, but increasingly leaders in places like Portland, Oregon, New York and Seattle are removing encampments and pushing other strict measures that would've been unheard of a few years ago.....Christine Drazan, the Republican running for governor in Oregon, opens (via a widespread campaign ad) with a woman recounting how she was held at knifepoint by a homeless man in Portland. It was only thanks to the police that she survived, she tells the camera, before warning that Kate Brown, the current Democratic governor, and Tina Kotek, the Democratic candidate to replace her, are “releasing criminals” and making Oregonians “less safe”....
....Portland, the state’s biggest city, is an avatar of the Pacific north-west’s particular brand of progressive. Yet the governor’s race is surprisingly close for a state that Joe Biden won by 16 points. Polls suggest that Ms Drazan, formerly the top Republican in Oregon’s House of Representatives, has a slight edge over Ms Kotek, that body’s former Speaker. Ms Drazan could become Oregon’s first Republican governor since Ronald Reagan was president....There are two main reasons for this. First, a third candidate, Betsy Johnson, is splitting the vote. Before renouncing her party to run as an independent, Ms Johnson spent 15 years as a conservative Democrat in the state legislature. Her politics resemble those of Joe Manchin, the senator for West Virginia. She supports abortion rights, but annoys more-liberal Democrats by arguing for gun rights and blocking environmental regulation. Ms Johnson has benefited from the beneficence of Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike and Oregon’s richest man, who poured nearly $4m into her campaign (he recently donated $1m to Ms Drazan too). Ms Johnson’s campaign is pulling votes from Ms Kotek, as she courts Oregon’s many unaffiliated voters and Democrats looking for a change.....
....Second, the race has become a referendum on Portland, which is struggling with violent crime, street homelessness and drug addiction..... fear and resentment towards Democrats, who run all levels of state government. But it plays on the real worries of Oregonians about Portland’s deterioration. Nearly three-quarters of likely voters polled by the Oregonian in September said they view the city negatively. Ms Brown, the outgoing governor, is the least popular governor in America. Ms Johnson and Ms Drazan are trying their best to paint Ms Kotek as her political doppelganger....Worsening homelessness, which voters say is the most important problem facing the state, has made change more appealing to habitual Democrats. The homeless population of Multnomah County, which includes Portland, grew by 30% between 2019 and 2022, to roughly 5,200 people. Most of the growth has been among those who sleep outside. Rising housing costs and the closure of shelters during the pandemic have pushed more people onto the streets....
....The proliferation of tent encampments in Portland’s Old Town neighbourhood near the city centre has blocked pavements, scattered rubbish and made people’s struggles with addiction more visible. Portland Clean and Safe, a programme that employs formerly homeless people to clean downtown, disposed of more than 180,000 needles in 2021, up from 5,000 in 2014. Anthony McDougald, one of the programme’s cleaners, often visits his brother who still lives on the street. “At one point you couldn’t get through the sidewalk because of everybody’s tent.."..."....and for a lot of people that’s very dystopian.....”
....Oregon’s Democrats are seeing what happens when elected officials demote public safety to a secondary concern. Local Democrats took chants to “defund the police” to heart in 2020...... The cuts came at a particularly inopportune time. For decades Portland was one of America’s safest cities. But the murder rate spiked there in 2020, as it did in cities across the country.....The cuts worsened a staffing shortage .... the loss of many officers following the city’s violent protests in summer of 2020. .... extremists flocked to Portland to stir up trouble....buildings were set on fire ........The political violence that tarred Portland’s peaceful protests is still on voters’ minds. About 70% of Portland voters say the demonstrations damaged public safety, and fully half suggest that they actually harmed racial unity....
...Portland’s struggles matter beyond state lines. West-coast cities from San Diego to Seattle seem unsure what to do about sky-high housing costs, tent encampments and open-air drug markets. These are also political problems for Democrats, who run America’s big cities......The growth of encampments is a rebuke to progressive politicians out to prove that their policies make life better and more equal for everyone.....The governor’s race in Oregon will test whether a left-leaning state will punish Democrats for problems that have mushroomed on their watch. If Mr Wheeler’s prediction is right, liberals elsewhere may want to pay attention....
https://www.economist.com/united-st...se-governors-race-is-a-referendum-on-portland
Direct Headline: Nike co-founder Phil Knight declares war on Democrats in Oregon
Knight has invested millions into Democrat Tina Kotek's opponents, and polls show a Republican lead
By Anders Hagstrom October 16, 2022
....Nike co-founder Phil Knight said he will do anything to block Democrats from keeping their hold on Oregon's gubernatorial seat Saturday....Knight, 84, has poured cash into the campaigns of Democrat Tina Kotek's opponents in the governors race. He helped to kickstart a campaign from Betsy Johnson, a former Democrat running as an independent, who is serving as a major spoiler for Kotek....Johnson's candidacy is giving Republican (Christine) Drazan the opportunity she needs in a liberal electorate no longer confident in the state's recent far-left policies....Knight went on to describe himself as "an anti-Tina person," to NYT....
....Oregon has not elected a Republican governor since 1982.....FiveThirtyEight has Drazan at a 3-point lead over Kotek, with 37.4% and 34.3% respectively. Meanwhile, Johnson sits at just 16.4% support....Drazan has styled herself as a moderate Republican in the race, focusing heavily on the issues of crime and homelessness....."Tina Kotek and Betsy Johnson have been driving Kate Brown's agenda for years. They've led Oregon down the wrong path....(have not) fixed anything...(and) made things worse..... My roadmap for Oregon cleans up our streets, stops the tax increases, and makes life more affordable for Oregon families...."
...But Johnson has pushed back against the "spoiler" designation, telling crowd members at a campaign appearance she is "not the spoiler candidate" and is "in this to win," ...Johnson was in Oregon's statehouse for 20 years as a Democrat before she quit the party in 2021 to run as an unaffiliated candidate for governor....Democrat Kate Brown has been Oregon's governor since 2015....(and) is not running again in 2022 due to term limits....Nike's co-founder, Knight, has donated at least $3.75 million to Johnson's campaign and $1 million to Drazan's campaign, according to the AP...Knight has a long history of clashing with Oregon lawmakers....
...Mr. Knight, Oregon’s richest man, is now the largest single contributor to both Ms. Johnson and Ms. Drazan. His largess has helped turn the race into a tossup, forcing Democrats to divert money in a bid to retain the governor’s office....Mr. Knight, who rarely speaks with reporters, said in an interview on Thursday that he would do whatever he could to stop Ms. Kotek from becoming governor, describing himself as “an anti-Tina person.”...Ms. Kotek, a former State House speaker, is in trouble because of a cocktail of political maladies and a backlash against Gov. Kate Brown, who polls show is the country’s least popular governor. Next week, Ms. Kotek’s own conduct in Salem will be scrutinized by a legislative committee after one of her former caucus colleagues accused her of making threats to win support for legislation she wanted to pass....
....Mr. Knight, in the interview, said he had abandoned Ms. Johnson’s campaign because she could not “get enough undecided voters to make up the difference” with Ms. Kotek and Ms. Drazan...Asked if serving as a financial benefactor for an anti-abortion politician ran counter to his company’s well-manicured image as a champion of social justice causes, he replied: “Nike has good leadership. They make choices, whatever they want, but I think I’m more conservative than Nike.” Mr. Knight is the chairman emeritus of Nike’s board but does not run the company day to day.....
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nike-co-founder-phil-knight-declares-war-democrats-oregon
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-wo...ht-tina-kotek-betsy-johnson-christinze-drazan
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/15/us/politics/kotek-drazan-oregon-governor.html
