The Portland mayor’s race has been finalized, but results of Portland’s 12 city council races are still being tabulated. So far, just two seats have been called: Olivia Clark in District 4 (W/Sellwood) and Steve Novick in District 3 (SE). And while there are still ballots to process, it seems like all 12 seats will remain the same from the initial results.
While we wait, I thought it’d be fun to share animations created using data provided by Multnomah County. This ranked choice voting system is so much more interesting because we can see in real time how the rankings impact each race. With each round of tabulations, the votes of the candidate that was eliminated are transferred to other candidates still in the race. This has had a big impact on some of the contests.
Thanks to a friend I talked to a Bike Happy Hour (thanks JR!), I found a website that allows you to take the County data files and do fun things with them. Check out animations of each race below…
Mayor
In the mayor’s race, we’ve already shared how voters who supported Liv Osthus were so opposed to Rene Gonzalez, that he didn’t get nearly as many of her 16,000 votes (so far) as Carmen Rubio, which effectively doomed his chances. You can see that play out in the animation below. Use the bar at the top to go round-by-round or to pause. Or you can play the animation all the way through (although I find that to be too fast).
District 1
In this race, the four candidates who battled just out of the top three were split between two folks who are on the left of the Portland political spectrum (Steph Routh and Timur Ender) and two candidates on the center-right (Noah Ernst and Terrence Hayes). As they are eliminated, watch who in the top three benefits most from their votes. Avalos was the clear winner and she staked out the progressive left in the race. Loretta Smith is definitely center-right (she’s very supportive of more police for instance) and Jamie Dunphy is center-left. Dunphy benefits great from votes from Ender and Routh, while Hayes’ votes went mostly to Smith and Ernst. Ernst voters were clearly more aligned with Smith than Dunphy. Check out the animation below and see for yourself.
District 2
Dan Ryan and Elana Pirtle-Guiney seem to have the top two spots locked up in early rounds. Sameer Kanal was relatively far behind, but his vote total increased in later rounds thanks to being ranked high by voters who supported other left-leaning candidates like Jonathan Tasini, Marnie Glickman, Michelle DePass, and Nat West. If a more centrist candidate like Maria Hudson would have finished higher, Tiffani Penson might have benefitted from her vote redistribution enough to edge out Kanal.
District 3
This race has the least amount of drama of all four districts. The top three of Steve Novick, Angelita Morillo and Tiffany Koyama Lane were never threatened. It’s still interesting to see how political alignments play out among the left, center, and right-leaning candidates who finished below them. For example, almost all of Harrison Kass’s votes went to fellow “public safety candidate” and Rene Gonzalez network member Kezia Wanner, but there were simply too many progressive voters in southeast for her to break into the top three.
District 4
This race had one clear winner in Oliva Clark. And there was some nail-biting among three candidate below her. Watch how the voters who supported Bob Weinstein, Chad Lykins, and Sarah Silkie impact the top four. Eli Arnold is very close to winning that third seat, but the redistribution from more left-leaning candidates Lykins and Silkie sealed his fate
There are so many lessons and insights to glean from how this election shook out! Remember, if the animation is too quick, you can pause by clicking in the round window. Or just go round-by-round by hitting the arrows. If for some reason these don’t embed well in your browser, the direct link to each one is below:
If this intrigues you, I highly recommend checking out RCVis.com. Get a free login and find the Portland election and poke around the other voter data tools and tables they provide.
