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Mayor Ted Wheeler began saying he would run for reelection last fall after he publicly muttered in public about hating the job.
It was a moment of frustration, he said, and he would attempt to break Portland's streak of one-term mayor's regardless:
"I'm not going to make an announcement today, because my wife and my daughter have a right to be engaged in the decision when I make it, and I'll make it during 2019," Wheeler told WW in December. "But people should absolutely expect I will not only run for re-election, but I will run an aggressive campaign, and I will put a very aggressive, forward-looking agenda on the table."
He all but formalized the decision in a May 7 interview with the Portland Tribune.
"I am not going to officially announce until after Labor Day," he told the Tribune editorial board. "It's a little early for that right now. But you know, I don't want to walk away from this job right now. I have great confidence in what I'm doing. And how I'm doing it and what my administration has prioritized. I've worked really hard. It's, it hasn't always been fun, but it has been very, very meaningful and I want to see this work through, I believe in it."
It's after Labor Day; he still hasn't made an announcement. But now he has taken the first concrete step to reelection: hiring a campaign manager.
Jennifer Arguinzoni worked in the mayor's office till earlier this month as director of Strategic Partnerships, and before that on the mayor's 2016 campaign.
She started working on Wheeler's re-election campaign on Sept. 16.