The Day after

Yesterday voters across Oregon cast ballots in the 2024 primary election. Two trends became clear looking at the results last night. First the hard left got smacked down across the state. Second the anemic turn out will be challenging for all candidates should the trend continue in the general election.

Let's look at some specific races.

Julie Hoy for Salem Mayor.

The Mayor's position is non-partisan. Last summer the current Salem City council passed a payroll tax that was voted down at 83% against. Julie lead the fight on the council to oppose that tax. In addition Salem has had record revenue the past few years. Against this back drop the current Mayor spent 250k on a Revenue Task force that created 41 new tax ideas and not one spending reduction.

Still, in Salem it's an uphill battle. The Salem city council has been liberal for years. In order to overcome this disadvantage Julie needed excellent messaging, funding and support from many local Republican leaders and the Marion County GOP. She received all of this and more. The result was a cohesive team that canvassed heavily and created a solid social media presence.

Anna Munson for County Clerk

The Clerk's race had a different feel and outcome. Anna generated a lot of energy and had an awesome team that worked very hard in a short amount of time. which is the key metric for this race. Lack of time to campaign. The third candidate to enter the race at the last minute forced the race into the primary where 50% + 1 would win the race outright. This is what happened. Anna was reduced from 8 months of campaigning against a 16 year incumbent to slightly more than two months. Name recognition is the biggest factor elections.

I'll update this post with others races and thoughts on turn out after the Thursday ballot drop.