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Shannon Singleton holds an early but strong lead in the race for Multnomah County commissioner in District 2, a seat that covers North and Northeast Portland. She’ll likely face one of two business-backed candidates in November.
Early returns show Singleton has 39% of the vote, while her two top challengers, former Portland Mayor Sam Adams and The Society Hotel CEO Jessie Burke, are neck and neck with 26.2% and 25.6%, respectively.
If a candidate receives over 50% of the vote, they’ll be the automatic winner. If no one candidate reaches that threshold, the two candidates that receive the most votes will go to a runoff in November. Should early returns hold, that means Singleton will likely face either Adams or Burke in November, when the electorate is typically more liberal.
Singleton is the former director of the Multnomah County Joint Office of Homeless Services and has long been in the nonprofit and housing policy world.
As the preliminary tallies popped up on a projected television screen in the lobby of the Hoxton Hotel in Northwest Portland, where Burke was holding her election night party with District 1 county commissioner candidate Vadim Mozyrsky and district attorney candidate Nathan Vasquez, all three considered moderate candidates and the choice of the business community, Burke appeared peppy—perhaps because Vasquez, whose campaign she manages, holds a strong lead over incumbent District Attorney Mike Schmidt.
The room of two dozen people at Adams’ party at Milo’s City Cafe became cautiously buoyant after 10 pm, when the latest drop of ballots showed Adams in second place, ahead of fellow centrist Burke by under 300 votes. Adams expressed optimism about November, should he make the runoff.
“Fifty percent of voters chose the alternative to the status quo,” he said. “That bodes well for the general election, when turnout will be higher.”
Adams continued: “The majority of voters want change. They want an end to the dithering at the county on homelessness and crime.”
The Portland Metro Chamber, the city’s chamber of commerce, endorsed both Adams and Burke for the seat. A political action committee funded by local developers spent a last-minute $95,000 to oppose Singleton, who for a short time ran the embattled Joint Office of Homeless Services for the county.
Adams, who served as Portland mayor from 2009 to 2013, last sought a political comeback when he ran for City Council in 2020. He hoped to resurrect a career that took him from being the longtime chief of staff to Mayor Vera Katz, to his own City Council seat, to being elected in 2008 as the first openly gay mayor of a large American city. A scandal involving Adams’ sexual relationship with a teenage state legislative intern named Beau Breedlove cost him a second term as mayor.
Mayor Ted Wheeler then brought Adams back as a top aide in 2021. Adams advised the mayor primarily on homelessness and was the architect of a controversial plan to set up large homeless encampments. But the two men had a major falling-out in early 2023 and Adams abruptly left that position. He and Wheeler attacked one another publicly, presenting different explanations for why Adams had suddenly left.