This year’s elections in deep-blue Oregon bear watching. The most notable is the race for governor in which Republican Christine Drazan is running neck and neck in her bid to be the first Republican elected governor of Oregon since 1982 — a GOP gubernatorial drought second only to neighboring Washington, and joining Delaware as one of just three states not to elect a Republican governor in this century. The voters of Oregon are not being asked who should run their government, but whether they should have a government at all.
Consider just a few representative samples of the news from Portland. This is just from one news outlet (the local ABC News affiliate) over one weekend.
NE Portland residents wake up to dozens of tires slashed, police looking for suspect:
Neighbors are asking for answers this afternoon in Northeast Portland. Residents woke up to tires punctured on vehicles parked on the street and in driveways…Portland Police say they have confirmed at least 30 vehicles have been hit…”It’s been a really good neighborhood. So we hate to see that, hear that,” said Dennis Breslin, another neighbor. “Why would anyone go around town just slashing tires?” asked a kid named Luna. “It’s been crazy having to raise children and all the crime going on. Shootings, intersections getting shut down, now tire slashings. Like, it’s a bit much,” said Erin Jones, another neighbor.
Ongoing vandalism discourages business owners in downtown Portland:
After moving from Portland’s Old Town to downtown, Wyatt Savage was hopeful the level of crime wouldn’t be quite so severe. But the owner at Pallet Portland is now considering a move to escape the ongoing challenges. “In three months I’ve had four windows smashed, I’ve had somebody try and rip the front door of our gate off the hinges and it’s just been non-stop,” Savage said. Savage said he’s added tools in an effort to slow down break-ins, like wooden boards and gates, but the business owner said the financial implications are getting harder to ignore. “Even if we were all making tons of sales, with the amount of damages happening, you know, 40 thousand dollars in damages in four months is insane. Like, that’s a lot of money to just come up with,” Savage said. Kamelah Adams brought her business to Old Town in 2021. She decided to move all sales online after a robbery this summer and is now evaluating where to go next.
Portland community responds to four homicides in 24 hours:
Portland Police made three arrests after four homicides in a 24-hour time period over the weekend. This spanned from early Friday morning into Saturday, including two stabbings in Old Town, a shooting in Northeast, and a shooting in Southeast. Sergeant Kevin Allen said from investigative units to patrol officers, it was all hands on deck to address the spike in homicides…The Blanchet House works with the homeless community in Old Town. [Its executive director Scott] Kerman said violence is just another concern for those living on the street. “It just underscores, for us, the terror and the trauma that our unhoused community and our residents in Old Town are facing,” he said…”We all know that we have a limited number of officers, so we have to deploy them as best we can to the areas that are in most need, but we also know that the city of Portland has a gun violence problem, it has a violence problem, it has a traffic fatality problem,” [Allen] said.
To summarize: unsafe for homeowners, unsafe for business, unsafe for homeless people, and too much for the cops to manage.