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All 12 seats in the Portland City Council 7 seats needed for a majority | ||
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Elections in Oregon |
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The 2024 Portland City Council elections were held on November 5, 2024. It was the first election under Portland's new form of government, the first election to elect a city council instead of a city commission, the first without a primary, the first where every seat was up for election, and the first under a proportional ranked-choice voting system (single transferable voting) as opposed to a first-past-the-post voting system with a primary.[1] It was held concurrently with the 2024 Portland, Oregon mayoral election.
Prior to January 2025, Portland used a city commission government with a five-member board, including the mayor.[2] Under the new form of government, approved by voters in 2022 and to come into effect in January 2025, the mayor will no longer be part of the city council, and instead of five at-large positions, the council will have twelve districted seats. Portland is divided into four wards, each electing three councilmembers.[1] The district elections use a single transferable vote election system. Special elections will no longer be used to fill vacancies in the council.[3] The elections continue to be officially nonpartisan (so party proportionality cannot be measured).
In the previous election, Dan Ryan and Rene Gonzalez were elected to the council, marking a shift in voters away from progressivism towards more moderate democratic politicians.[4] In the 2024 mayoral race, Ted Wheeler chose not to run for re-election. Outgoing commission members Mingus Mapps, Rene Gonzalez, and Carmen Rubio ran for mayor, while Dan Ryan ran for a City Council seat in District 2.
In the mayoral race, Mapps, Gonzalez and Rubio, alongside 15 other candidates, were all defeated by businessman Keith Wilson, while Ryan became the lone member of the previous City Commission to be elected to the new City Council in District 2 (although Steve Novick had previously served from 2013-2017). Joining him were Candace Avalos, Loretta Smith, and Jamie Dunphy from District 1, Sameer Kanal and Elana Pirtle-Guiney in District 2, Steve Novick, Angelita Morillo, and Tiffany Koyama Lane in District 3, and Olivia Clark, Mitch Green, and Eric Zimmerman in District 4.[5][6]
Clark and Novick's victories were called by The Oregonian on election night, but 8 of the remaining 10 seats were not called until Saturday, November 9, while Dunphy and Zimmerman's seats were not decided until Thursday, November 21 — more than 2 weeks after Election Day.[6]