Khanh Pham Made History. She’s Among Many Candidates of Color Who Won Victories in Legislative and City Contests.

Upsets could create new dynamics in Portland politics.

Khanh Pham. (Khanh Pham for Oregon)
By Aaron Mesh

Environmental justice organizer Khanh Pham will be the first Vietnamese candidate to win a seat in the Oregon Legislature. (She won the Democratic nomination in House District 46, and no Republican is on the ballot in November.) Latino Network president Carmen Rubio became the first Latinx candidate elected to the Portland City Council.

In all, 16 candidates of color secured party nominations for seats in the Legislature, which has nine lawmakers in its POC Caucus now.

By next January, the City Council could be majority minority, thanks to unexpected victories by black candidates: former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith and neighborhood association favorite Mingus Mapps.

Those upsets could create new dynamics in Portland politics. Smith and Mapps are widely seen as more conservative than their respective opponents, Dan Ryan and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly.

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