Candidate recommendations and ranked choice voting info.
This is your Portland Voter Guide.
This voter guide is a service to voters brought to you by trusted organizations.
Mayor of Portland
Carmen Rubio
An experienced and community-centered leader, Carmen has a proven history of collaborating to deliver results for Portland. She has taken decisive action to tackle Portland’s biggest challenges, from addressing housing and homelessness to improving community safety to supporting small businesses. Carmen will be a mayor that fights for all of Portland. That’s why Carmen’s our number one pick for Mayor.
Carmen Rubio
As a city commissioner, she has worked to expand the Portland Street Response, fought for more resources to take on our housing crisis, and delivered millions in funding to address gun violence. She also established the city’s first Office of Small Business, cutting red tape for local businesses so they can thrive.
As the leader of a community based organization, she successfully grew a small nonprofit serving the Latinx community into a 200+ person organization working on the front lines to serve families across the region, including providing early childhood education, youth empowerment and violence prevention programs, and school and community-based services. Carmen is the principled, forward-looking leader that Portland needs to tackle our toughest challenges. She will be ready, on day one, to make local government work for all of Portland.
We support Carmen because she’s the only candidate we can trust to:
- Ensure our city government runs effectively and efficiently, and that all Portlanders have a voice in City Hall.
- Invest in services, like the Portland Street Response, to help people who are homeless find permanent housing.
- Expand options for drug treatment and mental health services.
- Be accountable, accessible, and transparent.
These organizations proudly support Carmen:
Keith Wilson
Keith Wilson has a background as a business and non-profit leader. He says his top priority, if elected, would be to end unsheltered homelessness within one year.
Durrell Kinsey Bey
Durrell Kinsey Bey moved to Portland in 2021. He is a youth coordinator for the David Douglas School District and is committed to uplifting families and advocating for young people.
Mingus Mapps
Mingus Mapps currently serves on the Portland City Council. He has voted to increase the police budget and has said one of his priorities as Mayor would be to sustain the Portland Street Response and expand mental health and addiction services.
Liv (Viva) Østhus
Liv Østhus is running for Mayor to help restore the small business and artistic roots of Portland.
Rene Gonzalez
From cozying up to the far right to wasting taxpayer dollars, Rene Gonzalez represents everything that’s broken about Portland politics. That’s why we recommend NOT ranking him on your ballot.
Rene Gonzalez
Ranking a candidate you don’t like or who doesn’t represent your values could ultimately end up putting them in office – even if you rank them last. That’s why we don’t recommend ranking Rene Gonzalez anywhere on your ballot.
Rene Gonzalez represents everything that is dysfunctional in City Hall.
We recommend you don’t rank Gonzalez because:
- He has tried to cut funding for Portland Street Response, a critical program that helps people experiencing homelessness and mental health crises get the help they need.
- As the city faced long 911 wait times, Rene Gonzalez falsely accused a Black woman of assaulting him on a MAX train. Portland police found “there wasn’t evidence of a crime.”
- Instead of investing in our communities, Gonzalez is wasting our tax dollars on himself. Most recently, The Oregonian reported that he spent thousands of dollars on an out-of-state consultant to help edit his Wikipedia page.
- Gonzalez has a history of engaging with the far-right. After winning his City Council seat in 2022, Gonzalez tweeted out a thank you to campaign supporters, including Quincy Franklin, an apparent member of Patriot Prayer, a MAGA hate group that has repeatedly incited violence in Portland. Just this summer, he also showed support online for Andy Ngo, a far-right provocateur.