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Keith Wilson has maintained a significant lead in the Portland mayor’s race, after an updated ballot count. Wilson, the 61-year-old CEO of Portland trucking company Titan Freight, crossed the threshold of ballots needed to remain in the lead under the city’s new ranked-choice voting system at the 5:10 p.m. update on Wednesday.

In this new system, voters rank candidates by preference. Candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated after each round, and their votes are redistributed to voters’ next choices. Candidates must earn at least 50%, plus one of the votes counted to win — which is also called the ballot threshold. After Wednesday’s ballot count, Wilson was the first to pass that threshold. Wilson was also in the lead in the initial ballot release at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio is the closest behind Wilson’s lead. City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez is trailing Rubio. Per the results, Wilson pulled in 19,000 votes from people who ranked Gonzalez first to ultimately solidify his lead.

This doesn’t ensure Wilson’s victory. Per a 2021 change in Oregon law, voters can mail-in ballots on Election Day and still have them counted, which can delay final results. Multnomah County, which oversees city elections, anticipates receiving at least 115,000 more ballots this election cycle. When more ballots come in, elections staff will recalculate ballots using the ranked-choice system, potentially changing the outcome.

Wilson is the political outsider in the mayoral race, competing against three current city commissioners. It’s become a key talking point: “Electing one of our failed city leaders into the Mayor’s office will double down on the dysfunction of the status quo,” Wilson wrote in a candidate questionnaire submitted to OPB/The Oregonian.

Wilson’s campaign centered on an ambitious plan to end unsheltered homelessness by 2026 solely by expanding the city’s shelter capacity and strengthening the city’s beleaguered partnership with Multnomah County to oversee homeless service programs. He also pledged to crack down on carbon emissions, in part by converting all city vehicles to run on electricity (which Wilson did to all Titan trucks in 2023).

If elected, Wilson will be the first mayor in Portland’s new form of government. Under this voter-approved change, the mayor will no longer sit on City Council and will instead focus on running city departments alongside a new city administrator. The plan also expands the size of City Council to 12 members. Those councilors will also be decided in this week’s election. Several candidates in those races are leading in early returns, but results remain preliminary.

Neither Rubio nor Gonzalez have conceded the race to Wilson. Multnomah County’s elections staff will release another update on this race at 6 p.m. Thursday.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2024/11/06/portland-mayor-keith-wilson-ranked-choice-voting-politics-carmen-rubio-rene-gonzalez/