Fast Stats

• Population: 164,647
• Percentage of residents registered to vote: 67%
• Largest population of color: Asian (7.3%)
• Median household income: $94,000
• Percentage of population with a bachelor’s degree: 68%
• Nathan Vasquez’s vote share in May: 57%

Sources: City of Portland; John Horvick, DHM Research

Westsiders Take the Long View

On the westside, people are less likely to think the Portland City Council should give anyone a leg up. The Oregon Values and Beliefs Center’s survey this past spring found that only 27.8% want councilors to prioritize Portlanders who have faced or currently face barriers to reaching their individual potential at this time. (It’s essentially a question about redistributing civic resources). Westsiders were largely uninterested in that. Instead, they were more likely to think City Council should prioritize Portlanders 20 to 30 years down the line, something OVBC executive director Amaury Vogel attributes to their relative affluence. These residents are set for now and have the resources to practice more forward thinking, she says.

“People who have less representation…those people have a greater sense of urgency and immediacy,” Vogel adds. “They don’t have the luxury of what they would do in 10 years, what Portland [will be] like in 20 to 30 years, because they have to worry about what they are doing right now.”

Skyline Restaurant

1313 NW Skyline Blvd.

At lunchtime on a recent Tuesday, most of Skyline Restaurant’s customers order cheeseburger baskets off the menu with confidence. But these District 4 diners are a lot less sure about the three candidates they want representing them on an expanded City Council.

Dressed in a puffer vest, Michelle Baron, who’s perched at a corner booth, says she’s not familiar with her options and thinks it’s because candidates haven’t been doing a good job with their messaging. As for the current council? No one has impressed her.

“Sometimes I think people are just in it not really for change but just for their own name, or to act like they’re in politics but they’re not really involved,” Baron says. “I don’t know if they really know the seriousness of everything that goes on and how a lot of people are suffering and can’t afford to live here.”

Baron’s frustrated with local government and is looking for a candidate who is hands-on with the surge in unhoused people. “If you look at mental illness in downtown Portland, it’s rampant,” she says. “I think we need more health clinics. I think we need to destigmatize mental health.”

Fellow District 4 resident Tyler Seitz says he’ll look for candidates who support more law enforcement and public safety measures. He doesn’t do much research before reading the voters’ pamphlet to make his decisions, so he’s currently undecided.

Growing up in Beaverton, Seitz always looked forward to Portland trips with his family and felt safe in the city. But now that he lives in Multnomah County, a lot of that charm has faded.

“Things just aren’t adding up,” says Seitz, 34. “It just makes you feel unsatisfied that you pay this money to this entity and then you don’t get the benefits.”

Brooke Lunsmann, 33, also says she pays quite a bit in taxes but doesn’t see many tangible results. Her complaint was a familiar refrain among Skyline’s patrons: They wouldn’t mind their tax burden if they could see the results. Her top issue is a Multnomah County one: broadening access to the county’s universal preschool initiative.

“You’re going to encourage healthy households and work-life balance if you have those options for child care early on, because you don’t even have to be completely poor for day care to be unattainable,” she says. As health care worker, she adds, she sees this problem as a top priority for many of her patients.

At Skyline, several retired-age people spoke about their disdain for ranked choice voting (calling it overwhelming), but none were willing to go on the record.

But the residents who would speak freely were more enthusiastic about RCV and liked the array of options. Lunsmann says she’s really looking forward to a “nice mixed bag” of City Council members.

For Seitz, it’ll be a welcome change to the current system and empower voters with different beliefs.

“I think it helps people feel less like if they vote for an opposing candidate that they’re throwing their vote away,” he says. “I want people to feel like their vote can do something, [that] even if they don’t know exactly what they want, they’re still contributing to that process.”