Low turnout in Multnomah County signals Democratic Party’s struggles

Editor’s note: For Election 2024, OPB has been diligently following local races, providing comprehensive coverage of campaigns and measures. Check results on the presidential race, key congressional battles and other outcomes at OPB’s elections page.

Multnomah County is on track for a lower voter turnout this year compared to recent presidential elections.

Despite a record last-minute rush of 132,436 ballots submitted on Election Day, the turnout so far has been about 73%. That number is projected to increase by only two percentage points, Multnomah County elections officials said in a news release Thursday. The county, which is a Democratic stronghold, has reported a turnout rate of about 80% in the past four presidential elections.

Similar trends of lower turnout have been reported in Kansas City, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alabama.

The results come as some urban areas across the country failed to see the blue wave Democrats anticipated during this presidential election, suggesting voters were not as energized to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris as the party had hoped.

“We are seeing some pretty wide shifts nationwide away from Democrats, and I wonder if this is our own miniature version of that,” said Ben Gaskins, a political science professor at Lewis & Clark College.

Experts say that voters in urban areas like Portland may have felt disenchanted by the prospect of another member of the Biden administration in the White House, in part due to its handling of the war in Gaza.

“For a lot of leftists, that is almost seen as a deal breaker for voting for the current administration,” Gaskins said.

In addition, voters may have been concerned about the signs of economic struggle that have recently faced cities like Portland — increased housing prices, inflation, homelessness and public safety issues — and decided not to vote because their lives hadn’t improved in the last four years.

“The cost of things is still really a stressor,” said Paul Manson, a research assistant professor at the Portland State University Center for Public Service.

While cities like New York saw a shift toward Republicans during this general election, there is minimal evidence to suggest Portland is becoming more conservative.

But there are signs that some in Oregon’s largest city have grown tired of those currently in power. Last spring, the city elected a new district attorney, Nathan Vasquez, who promised to be tougher on crime than his opponent, outgoing District Attorney Mike Schmidt. And this week, the city favored a political outsider, Keith Wilson, for mayor over three sitting city councilors.

This year, the city of Portland held its election with the ranked choice voting system for the first time. Tim Scott, the county’s elections director, said about 97% of the city’s voters who returned a general election ballot also returned the ranked choice ballot.

Laurie Wimmer, the executive secretary and treasurer of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, said that while she was going door to door campaigning for City Council candidates this year, some voters said they were flummoxed by the new voting system. She said that might be one reason for the low turnout.

“I had one person say, ‘Hey, I wasn’t a very good test taker in high school, and I had PTSD because the ballot looked like a Scantron test answer sheet,’” Wimmer said. “I thought that was hilarious.”

Wimmer, a retired lobbyist for the Oregon Education Association, said Democrats nationwide should have catered more of their message to economic concerns.

“Economic inequality is still a thing, and it’s bad in Portland for a lot of people,” Wimmer said. “I think that, in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, being a good citizen falls somewhere below making sure you have milk in the fridge for the kids and that you can afford gas to work.”

With many votes left to count, Oregon has so far reported a statewide voter turnout rate of about 69%, according to Oregon secretary of state data as of Thursday. Democratic turnout was about 81%, Republican turnout about 83%.

For nonaffiliated voters — Oregon’s largest group, with more than 1.1 million eligible voters — turnout sits at about 50%.