NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Bernie Sanders wins Oregon’s Democratic primary, completes sweep of Pacific NW

Ini­tial results in Ore­gon’s 2016 pri­ma­ry elec­tion are in, and they show that Bernie Sanders has won the Beaver State as expect­ed, although not by a huge margin.

Of Ore­gon’s 2,293,928 vot­ers, 954,125 cast bal­lots, for a total turnout of 41%.

In Ore­gon, vot­ers reg­is­ter by par­ty, so we can also com­pare turnout among vot­ers iden­ti­fy­ing with a par­ty. Slight­ly more than half of the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers turned out, which is a rea­son­ably impres­sive fig­ure for a pri­ma­ry. On the Repub­li­can side, turnout was 47.5%. 478,713 Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers cast bal­lots, com­pared to 326,226 Repub­li­can voters.

Results on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side for Pres­i­dent were as follows:

Can­di­dateVotesPer­cent­age
Hillary Clin­ton200,44945.56%
Bernie Sanders231,69652.67%
Write-in Votes7,7861.77%
Totals:439,931100%

On the Repub­li­can side, Don­ald Trump eas­i­ly cruised to vic­to­ry, win­ning 65.19% of the vote. John Kasich, who sus­pend­ed his cam­paign dur­ing the mail-in vot­ing peri­od, came in sec­ond place with 16.25%. Ted Cruz was third with 15.79%. No oth­er can­di­dates appeared on the bal­lot for the Republicans.

In oth­er races:

  • Ore­gon’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden eas­i­ly won his par­ty’s nom­i­na­tion, cap­tur­ing 83.76% of the vote. He’ll face Inde­pen­dent Steven Reynolds and Repub­li­can Mark Calla­han in November.
  • Each of Ore­gon’s incum­bent U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives won their par­ty nom­i­na­tions as well. Of the incum­bents, Kurt Schrad­er had the small­est mar­gin of vic­to­ry, pos­si­bly owing to some of the not-pro­gres­sive votes he’s tak­en late­ly in Con­gress. Here the matchups for the fall: 
    • OR-01: Suzanne Bonam­i­ci (D) v. Bri­an J Hein­rich (R)
    • OR-02: Greg Walden (R) v. James Carey (D)
    • OR-03: Earl Blu­me­nauer (D) v. David Walk­er (I)
    • OR-04: Peter A DeFazio (D) v. Art Robin­son (R)
    • OR-05: Kurt Schrad­er (D) v. Colm Willis (R)
  • For Gov­er­nor, Ore­gon’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers backed Kate Brown, who gar­nered a com­mand­ing 84% of the vote. Repub­li­can vot­ers picked Bud Pierce, who dom­i­nat­ed a weak field with 46.62% of the vote.
  • In the Sec­re­tary of State’s race, Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers nom­i­nat­ed Brad Avakian, who tri­umphed over Richard Devlin and Val Hoyle. Avakian won with 39.12% of the vote com­pared to Hoyle’s 33.87% and Devlin’s 26.25%. Repub­li­cans over­whelm­ing­ly nom­i­nat­ed Den­nis Richardson.
  • There was no dra­ma in the Trea­sur­er’s race, as only one can­di­date appeared on each bal­lot. Demo­c­rat Tobias Reed will face Repub­li­can Jeff Gud­man. The Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s race was also a yawn­fest. Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent Ellen Rosen­blum ran unop­posed in the pri­ma­ry. She’ll face Repub­li­can Daniel Zene Crowe, who also ran unopposed.
  • Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, there was­n’t much excite­ment in the leg­isla­tive races. How­ev­er, the 40th Dis­trict had an inter­est­ing con­test on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Mark Meek cap­tured the nom­i­na­tion with 42.30% of the vote, trailed by Ter­ry Gib­son at 29.37% and Steven Cade at 27.84%. There was an even clos­er race in the 43rd for State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Rober­ta Phillip-Rob­bins nar­row­ly beat out Taw­na Sanchez for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion. She had 49.51% to Sanchez’s 47.69%.

Com­plete state-lev­el results can be viewed here.

In Port­land, Ore­gon’s largest city, there were some lop­sided results:

  • Ted Wheel­er has won the crowd­ed pri­ma­ry for May­or of Port­land. With 66,271 votes, he’s well ahead of every­body else.
  • For Com­mis­sion­er Posi­tion 1, vot­ers backed Aman­da Fritz. For Posi­tion 4, they backed Steve Novick.

Results for Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty can be viewed here.

Ore­gon is the third and final state in the inner Pacif­ic North­west to hold a nom­i­nat­ing event on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side.

Wash­ing­ton Democ­rats held cau­cus­es on March 26th, while Ida­ho Democ­rats cau­cused sev­er­al days pri­or on March 22nd. Alas­ka and Hawaii Democ­rats also joined Wash­ing­ton Democ­rats in hold­ing cau­cus­es on March 26th.

Mon­tana will be the last state in the Pacif­ic North­west to weigh in. Its pri­ma­ry will take place at the end of the sea­son, on June 7th, along with Cal­i­for­nia, New Jer­sey, South Dako­ta, and New Mex­i­co. North Dako­ta Democ­rats will also cau­cus that day.

The Dis­trict of Colum­bia will hold its pri­ma­ry on June 14th, 2016, at the very end of the nom­i­nat­ing cal­en­dar. At that point, all U.S. juris­dic­tions will have held nom­i­nat­ing events, and the sea­son will have drawn to a close.

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