Skip to main content
KATU Channel 2 and SurveyUSA on Friday released results of the first public poll in the Portland mayor's race, and it showed candidate Ted Wheeler with a wide lead over Jules Bailey.
Primary election day is still more than six weeks away, however. And, as they say, anything can happen.
According to the poll, 38 percent of respondents said they would vote for Wheeler, Oregon's state treasurer, while 8 percent of respondents said they'd vote for Jules Bailey, a Multnomah County commissioner.
Eight percent was enough to put Bailey in second place, because 31 percent of voters said they were undecided about the May 17 election. The remaining votes were split among 13 additional candidates.
The SurveyUSA poll quizzed 576 likely Portland voters between March 28 and April 1 and has a margin of error of 4.2 percent. But as The Oregonian pointed out, past SurveyUSA polls have been off the mark. During the 2012 mayoral primary in Portland, for example, early polls put businesswoman Eileen Brady in the lead.
She finished third in the 2012 primary, behind now-Mayor Charlie Hales and former state Rep. Jefferson Smith.
In Portland, a candidate can win an election outright in the primary if he or she gets more than 50 percent of the vote. Otherwise, the top two finishers head to a November runoff.
The KATU/SurveyUSA poll also asked respondents about Portland's proposed gas tax. According to the poll, the 10-cent-per-gallon tax is still a toss-up, with 38 percent of voters for it and 34 percent of voters against it. An additional 29 percent of respondents said they hadn't decided.
Willamette Week
