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Three Portland city commissioners are vying to become the city’s next mayor. Though the election is still 10 months away, Commissioners Mingus Mapps, Carmen Rubio and Rene Gonzalez are already turning an eye to fundraising.
All three first-timers to the City Council are participating in the city’s Small Donor Elections program, which matches campaign contributions with public dollars by up to a 9-to-1 ratio.
So far, Gonzalez has outraised Mapps twofold and Rubio fivefold.
Portland voters elected the small business owner and lawyer to the City Council just over a year ago, but he quickly became a darling of downtown property owners for his law-and-order stance on homelessness and open drug use, and his vocal support for the police force.
Gonzalez, according to the program’s database, has received $92,000 in contributions. Mapps has raised $42,000. Rubio has collected $18,000.
The numbers are even more striking because Mapps declared his run for mayor in July of last year, meaning he’s had an additional five months to fundraise as a mayoral candidate. Gonzalez, who declared his run in early December, still appears to be markedly outraising him. Rubio joined the race earlier this month. (Contributions reflect all money raised since the start of the current election cycle, which started on Dec. 23, 2022.)
The breakdown of the contributions offers a peek into each of the candidates’ supporters.
Gonzalez’s median contribution is $100, as is Rubio’s; Mapps’ median contribution is just half of that, at $50.
Right around a third of contributions received by Gonzalez were between $250 and $1,000; that size of donation makes up only 10% of Mapps’ contributions and 12% of Rubio’s.
Mapps has received 50 more contributions than Gonzalez that are less than $25, even though Gonzalez has raised double what Mapps has.
The state’s election contributions database also offers a look into who is lining up behind each candidate so far. What is abundantly clear: Gonzalez is being backed by the city’s most deep-pocketed families.
Leading real estate families like the Menashes and Goodmans are contributing to Gonzalez’s campaign. So is the CEO of Columbia Sportswear, Tim Boyle, and Al Jubitz, of the locally owned Jubitz Truck Stop. (Fred Jubitz, owner of the truck stop, is Gonzalez’s step-uncle.) That likely stings for Mapps, who was backed by business interests in his 2020 campaign for City Council and brands himself as a pragmatic, business-friendly elected official.
Rubio has received contributions from state Rep. Rob Nosse (D- Portland), Multnomah County Commissioner Jesse Beason and Gale Castillo, co-founder of the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber. Tom Brenneke, a developer who contributed to Gonzalez late last year, also gave to Rubio this week. Last fall, Brenneke gave to Mapps, too.