In the 2024 election cycle, United for Portland will consider endorsements of candidates running for Multnomah County Commission and Portland City Council. At this time, we are not planning to endorse for Mayor of Portland, but we invite all Mayoral candidates to join us for our events.
Currently, we are working on endorsements for the November 2024 general election.
If you are running, or considering running, for Portland City Council or Mayor of Portland, we’d love to hear from you. But please know that endorsements will take place after the filing deadline in August.
The United for Portland endorsement process (available for download here) is an opportunity to identify thoughtful, practical leaders running for Portland City Council, demonstrate their qualifications for office, and help educate and prepare those candidates for the challenges they will face. Our goal is to make our endorsement process educational, transparent, open, and inclusionary.
Many endorsement processes are intentionally opaque to outsiders and the media, often for good reason. However, we want our process for Portland City Council elections to be different – with a new Charter, a new system of elections, and many tough decisions ahead, we believe this calls for a new approach to endorsements, just as it calls for a new approach to our city government. So, what exactly is our process? We are glad you asked...
In short, we will hold a series of educational briefings and events about important topics that matter to each of the four districts. To earn our Green Light endorsement, you will opt in by filling out a short, public questionnaire (available for download here), attend our mandatory educational events, and have earned 250 unique donations (same level as required for Tier 1 public financing). For candidates who go above and beyond – attending more events and reaching 750 donations, we will shine United for Portland’s Spotlight on your campaign.
Two tiers of support: Green Light and Spotlight.
United for Portland will hold events throughout the campaign for candidates, with the media invited as well. The first event will be a State of the Economy briefing, conducted by EcoNorthwest, followed by a meet and greet with United for Portland’s Board, members, and donors. There are two additional events in progress as well, and details will be emailed when finalized. The pre-voters’ pamphlet deadline events are:
Additional events will be added throughout the election season, with the continued goal of educating candidates about important issues facing our city, and the existing challenges to solving our problems.
The purpose of the United for Portland endorsement process is to identify thoughtful, pragmatic leaders running for office. United for Portland will seek to identify and endorse the candidate who will be the best elected leader, a process which is inherently subjective. In some circumstances, United for Portland may decide to make no endorsement or to make multiple endorsements in a given race.
United for Portland’s endorsements are based on:
United for Portland’s endorsement process is conducted confidentially. All responses to questionnaires (unless otherwise specified) and any information given during an interview about issue positions or about specific campaign plans are held in confidence until after the election is over.
Not all candidates who complete a questionnaire will be interviewed. It may be determined based on responses and record that the applying candidate may not be able to earn United for Portland’s endorsement.
All United for Portland endorsements are made by the United for Portland Board.
Our goal is to be able to issue final endorsements before the voters’ pamphlet deadline and after the filing deadline. This allows candidates who would like to use the endorsements in the voter’s pamphlet to do so.
An endorsement from United for Portland is not a guarantee or indicator of financial contributions or additional resources to support a candidate or campaign.