Middaugh campaign: “We did it!”

Jim Middaugh City Council candidate-3.jpg

Jim Middaugh
(Photos © Jonathan Maus)

In a rare move for an aspiring politician, City Council hopeful Jim Middaugh is telling supporters to stop giving him money.

In a statement released late Thursday night, he claimed they are “over the top” with $5 contributions. “In fact,” the statement said,

“We’re over the top so far that I need to ask you to please stop gathering new contributions. We can’t keep up.”

Middaugh, a daily bike rider who I met with last week, had to submit 1,000 $5 contributions by January 31st to qualify for public financing.

He had 781 by the first week and now he claims he’ll have collected “1,400 or more” by the end of Friday and he’s “very confident we will be approved by the city auditor.”

City Council candidate Nick Fish-3.jpg

Middaugh’s competition: Nick Fish.

Once approved, Middaugh will have about $150,000 to begin his campaign. Insiders say he’ll need every penny to thwart his main competition, Nick Fish. Fish lost a hotly contested election with Sam Adams back in 2004 and has opted to not seek public financing.

Middaugh is currently the chief of staff for the man he hopes to replace, City Commissioner Erik Sten.

In his most recent announcement, Middaugh said (among other things), “I’m ready to lead the charge for new and better transportation options.”


In other City Council election news…

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, contact me via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a paying subscriber.

Thanks for reading.

BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.

Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

8 Comments
oldest
newest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
jeff s
jeff s
16 years ago

Congratulations, Jim! Best $5 I ever spent.

Matt Picio
16 years ago

Jim Middaugh was out talking to people this morning at the Hawthorne for Breakfast on the Bridges – thanks, Jim for coming out and talking to us, and congratulations!

car free
car free
16 years ago

Because of Jim\’s amazing speed at which he was able to gather the 1,000+ donations, he makes this look easy. This makes me question other candidates who had many, many months to collect the needed donations and are just now getting to 1,000. I think we have a great candidate at our hands here!

Laura
Laura
16 years ago

This guy\’s the real deal.
Go Jim!

Elliot
Elliot
16 years ago

I was planning on turning in my $5 and a form today, but if he\’s asking, I suppose I\’ll just honor Jim\’s request not to do so… just as long as he doesn\’t ask me not to vote for him!

James Bernard Lee
16 years ago

Yeah, with a lot of help from Vladimir Golovan.

Matthew
Matthew
16 years ago

Uhmm, yeah, I have $20 (from 4 people,) that I haven\’t sent in yet, (I was going to get a 5th this afternoon.) I won\’t get the 5th, but I\’m assuming I should still send it in?

Ride More
Ride More
16 years ago

Send them in.

I appreciate Jim\’s celebratory message, but better safe than sorry, especially if you have $5 and completed forms in hand. Certainly some number of those forms will be incomplete or otherwise problematic. I think the nature of Jim\’s message is, \”Thanks, but I feel confident we\’re there so I don\’t need you to do any more recruiting.\” But if you have them in hand send \’em in.