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Early voting returns released Thursday night show Shannon Singleton has so far taken a comfortable lead in the three-way race for Multnomah County chair.
The contest for county chair has been one of this fall’s fiercest, pitting three former and current county commissioners against each other. In Multnomah County government, the chair wields immense power. As its chief executive and personnel officer, the chair sets the Board of County Commissioners’ agenda and has great oversight over the county budget.
This election is also the first in which Multnomah County uses ranked choice voting, which could make projecting a winner more difficult.
In the first round of voting, Singleton has 54.9% of the vote, with 97,165 cast so far. Establishment favorite Julia Brim-Edwards was behind Singleton in early votes with 79,809 votes, or 45.1%. Sharon Meieran, a former county commissioner and fierce critic of county spending, was eliminated in early returns.
A current county commissioner who is the candidate furthest left in the chair’s race, Singleton leads despite a significant fundraising disadvantage in the contest. She had raised just over $55,000 by Election Day, and entered the race with some support from top unions like Service Employees International Union. (Last minute, she also won the endorsement of the county’s largest labor union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 88.)
Before her time on the county board, Singleton built a career around homelessness and behavioral health. With a master’s degree in social work, she advised Gov. Kate Brown and served stints at Portland City Hall and as the interim director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services.
At Amalfi’s Italian Restaurant on Northeast Fremont Street on Tuesday night, a lively crowd gathered to watch results roll in for Singleton and county commissioner hopeful Bri Williams. The mood leading up to the 8 pm drop was exuberant as attendees glued their eyes to results of federal contests nationwide; the crowd passed around a bubble gun that set off jets throughout the restaurant.
Shortly after 8 pm, a small crowd of supporters surrounded Singleton, cheering as she looked over her election results. Ahead of the first drop of ballots, Singleton said she wasn’t sure how the contest would play out, but noted she’d heard good things as she knocked doors.
Preliminary results do not mean that Singleton has won the race. The Multnomah County Elections Division will continue releasing batches of voting results, with the next count update set for midnight.
A current county commissioner and former longtime Portland School Board member, Brim-Edwards, who trails Singleton, had endorsements by all six mayors in the county alongside several powerful unions. She significantly outraised her opponents in the contest, hauling in more than $250,000 in contributions by Election Day.
In recent months, Brim-Edwards’ campaign was rocked by a couple of controversies, which may have swayed voters. Seven of her fellow colleagues on the Portland School Board released an open letter in late July warning that Brim-Edwards was unfit for her position, saying she struggled to collaborate and engage in honest communication.
In the past couple of weeks, both Basic Rights Oregon and the county’s largest labor union, AFSCME Local 88, rescinded endorsements of Brim-Edwards after three board members said that during School Board executive sessions, Brim-Edwards had said trans athletes might hurt scholarship opportunities for other kids and encouraged Portland Public Schools to consider stricter guidelines for trans athletes to participate in sports. (AFSCME turned around and endorsed Singleton. BRO had already done so.)
Meieran, an emergency room doctor who previously spent eight years on the county board, built her campaign on a 23-page document she termed the Comprehensive Multnomah County Turnaround Plan, which proposed tying every county dollar to outcomes and restructuring its many departments. Her campaign had raised just shy of $195,000 by Election Day. In the contest for chair, Meieran chose not to seek organizational endorsements.
In the District 2 race for a seat on the County Board of Commissioners, the first batch of results shows that Bri Williams has taken a narrow early lead of 52%, or 25,127 votes. Singleton vacated the seat, which covers the bulk of North and Northeast Portland, to mount her bid for chair.
Williams, a social worker and mental health consultant for the county, specifically providing services to preschool-aged children at Albina Head Start, will hold elected office for the first time if results hold. After the first batch of results, Williams jumped and danced around as speakers blasted Kendrick Lamar’s “tv off.”
The contest in this district largely pitted Williams against Serena Cruz, who held the commissioner post back in the early 2000s. Cruz, who recently served as the county’s chief operating officer, was polling at 48%, with 23,195 votes, within striking distance of Williams.
