Juan Carlos Gonzalez is the first Hispanic elected to Metro’s council in Portland. (Portland Tribune/Jaime Valdez) Juan Carlos Gonzalez was a high school junior from Forest Grove when he encountered President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., through the Boys Nation leadership program. Meeting the nation’s first black president made a[Read More…]

Republican gubernatorial candidate Knute Buehler closes out his campaign day Monday at his headquarters in Tualatin (Photo courtesy of the Buehler campaign) In the closing hours of Oregon governor’s race on Monday, Kate Brown and Knute Buehler took very different approaches to finishing up a campaign that has stretched out[Read More…]

With polls showing the two main gubernatorial candidates only a few percentage points away from victory, their campaigns are focused on winning votes from nonaffiliated and independent voters in the final days before Tuesday’s election. The last-minute choices of those voters could determine the outcome of the race, political analysts said Thursday. Nonaffiliated voters make up 32 percent of[Read More…]

Gov. Kate Brown, Democratic incumbent, Patrick Starnes, Independent Party candidate for governor, and KATU anchor Debora Knapp at the station’s studio Tuesday after Starnes decided to endorse Brown. (Oregon Capital Bureau/Paris Achen) On Sunday evening, Patrick Starnes, a cabinet maker and would-be governor, hit “send” on his home computer, dispatching[Read More…]

Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess shows the different ballot styles in Marion County. (Claire Withycombe/East Oregonian) Voters are turning ballots in more slowly than the last time Oregon elected a governor, according to the state Elections Division, as big money continues to flow to the campaigns of Democrat Kate Brown[Read More…]

Oregon Democrats are returning election ballots at a much higher rate than Republicans and other voters, according to report Tuesday by the state Elections Division. Out of over 66,000 ballots returned as of Tuesday, more than half came from Democrats, even though they are one-third of Oregon’s 2.7 million registered[Read More…]

The two prime candidates for Oregon governor are releasing multiple television and social media ads in the final days of the campaign. Some make misleading and sometimes inaccurate claims. Gov. Kate Brown, the Democratic incumbent, and state Rep. Knute Buehler, her Republican challenger, are funneling millions into advertising in the[Read More…]

DACA recipients protest at the Capitol in August. (Paris Achen/Portland Tribune) Knute Buehler, Republican nominee for governor, has staked inconsistent positions on immigration, a review of his public record establishes. The Republican legislator from Bend has voted against state legislation that protects immigrants but supported tighter controls over racial profiling.[Read More…]