SEIU Local 49 Adds Mingus Mapps and Keith Wilson to Its Endorsements for Mayor, Maintains Endorsement of Carmen Rubio

The union’s board took a vote last week to add Mapps and Wilson to its shortlist.

Mayoral candidate forum, 9/12/24 Koin anchor and moderator Ken Boddie (left), mayoral candidate and CEO of Titan Freight Keith Wilson (center left), Portland City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez (center right), Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio (right). Mayoral candidate forum, 9/12/24 (Jake Nelson)
By Sophie Peel

Service Employees International Union Local 49 last week voted to support a second and third candidate for Portland mayor: Keith Wilson and Mingus Mapps.

The union, which represents 15,000 health care workers in the region, earlier this year announced its endorsement of sitting City Commissioner Carmen Rubio for mayor. SEIU political director Yasmin Ibarra says Rubio is still the union’s “number one,” but that after conversations with other SEIU locals in other states, the board thought it best practice to give its members options in the new ranked-choice voting system.

“You have to give people options in this ranked-choice system,” Ibarra said in a phone call to WW. Ibarra says the last-minute endorsements were internal-facing only; she says it’s to give the union’s members options to vote for on their ballots, not to backtrack publicly on its endorsement of Rubio.

But while the union maintains its endorsement of Rubio, adding Wilson and Mapps to the shortlist is likely unwelcome news for Rubio’s campaign, and is probably a signal that the union is feeling less confident about the viability of Rubio’s candidacy. (Rubio’s campaign has been rocked by The Oregonian’s reporting on her flagrant traffic tickets and driving history.).

Rubio’s campaign manager, Terri Waller, says Rubio is still SEIU’s “top choice.”

“But what I also hear SEIU saying is that, in the context of ranked choice voting, Portlanders should rank anybody but Rene Gonzalez for their second or third choice,” Waller says.

Mapps has struggled as a sitting commissioner to generate meaningful support for his mayoral campaign. Wilson, the owner of a trucking company, is a political outsider whose campaign has gradually gained steam as the two leading candidates, Rubio and Rene Gonzalez, have both made missteps.

SEIU Local 503 and Local 49 together form the SEIU Oregon State Council. They often move in tandem with political endorsements. Earlier this year, they jointly endorsed Rubio as well as a slate of candidates in national, state and local races. But only Local 49 voted to endorse Mapps and Wilson as viable mayoral candidates last week.

Ibarra says it doesn’t speak to a political split between the unions, but instead just a timing issue for Local 503′s endorsement board.


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