A new poll by DHM Research shows Portland mayoral candidate Charlie Hales leadingEileen Brady and Jefferson Smith by a wider margin.

KPTV and OPB News, which commissioned the poll, have published the results on their websites.

The results, which show Smith steadily gaining share as Brady lags, show similar trends as anOregonian/KGW poll released last week. But a SurveyUSA poll also released last week showed the top candidates in an effective tie.

Read more…

(May 11, 2012—Portland, OR)  With just three days until election day, Jefferson Smith for Mayor is hosting the One Portland canvass on Saturday, May 12th. The event kicks off at 10:00 AM with local talk show host and celebrity blogger Byron Beck as emcee. Special guests State Representative Sara Gelser and former Oregon House Speaker Phil Lang will also be on hand to rally supporters as they hit the streets for Jefferson Smith in the last weekend before the primary election. A second canvass shift starts at 1:00pm.

“For the last 20-30 years, our city has been facing too many divisions,” said State Representative Jefferson Smith, candidate for Portland mayor. “It’s time for us to come together as one city. I’m running for One Portland.”

The canvass kickoff will take place at the historic Bob White Theater, 6423 SE Foster Road in Portland.  A post-canvass rally begins at 3:00pm with music featuring the March Forth Marching Band.

For many years, the Bob White Theater was dark. But it’s recently been brought back to life by new owners who hope to make it a place where the Foster-Powell neighborhood can celebrate music, art, culture and community.

“The Bob White Theater represents a revitalization for this part of Portland,” Jefferson Smith said. “It’s a great venue to kick off our One Portland canvass because it’s a demonstration of how we can rejuvenate our city.”

More information is available about the event by calling the campaign headquarters at 503-610-3238.

https://www.facebook.com/events/223909001052650/

(May 9, 2012—Portland, OR) Mayoral candidate State Representative Jefferson Smith testified to the Portland City Council this afternoon, urging the body to adopt a proposed Responsible Banking Resolution.

Smith argued that the resolution — which would allow the city to deposit $2.5 million of the city’s money into 10 banks and credit unions based in Oregon, open up the contracting process, and increase transparency — is good for citizens, and good for Portland’s local economy.

“This century’s big question is figuring out an economic future that is prosperous, sustainable, and fair. I encourage you to vote for this responsible banking resolution as one small step toward answering that question.”

He noted that local institutions are more likely to reinvest funds within the community, their earnings are more likely to create local jobs, and they may offer a better rate of return.

Smith thanked Mayor Adams and advocates for their work on the resolution, which builds on HB 3700, passed by the 2010 legislature. That bill allowed the creation of a collateral pool to back public deposits in credit unions.

Smith publicly called for the city to take up a responsible banking resolution last November.

A new poll in the Portland mayor’s race suggests Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith are vying for the top two spots and Eileen Brady — long considered a front-runner — has dropped to third place.

The survey of 400 likely voters — commissioned by The Oregonian and KGW (8) — put Hales at 29 percent, Smith at 28 percent and Brady at 16 percent, while 18 percent of respondents said they were undecided. The poll, conducted May 2-6 by Elway Research Inc., had a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.

The takeaway? With just one week until ballots are due in the May 15 primary, the nonpartisan mayor’s race is still very much in flux, said Stuart Elway, the independent pollster whose firm is based in Seattle.

Read more…

A new poll in the Portland mayor’s race shows that state Rep. Jefferson Smith (D-Portland) is surging in the campaign’s final days.

The survey suggests city commissioner Charlie Hales and Eileen Brady have gained little ground with voters since last month.

The SurveyUSA poll conducted for KATU and released Monday afternoon shows Brady with 28 percent, Smith with 27 and former City Commissioner Charlie Hales with 25. The top three contenders in the May 15 primary are all within the poll’s 4.2 percent of margin of error—which means this race is essentially even.

Read more…

For the second time in less than a week, a public poll has cast the Portland mayor’s race as a statistical tie—while also confirming strong, late momentum for East Portland State Representative Jefferson Smith, who has closed a significant gap in recent months over his two main rivals, businesswoman Eileen Brady and former city commissioner Charlie Hales.

And it likely won’t be the only major poll unveiled tonight. The Oregonian is expected to release its own public survey, sources say.

KATU’s phone poll of 563 likely (and actual!) voters, conducted by Survey USA on May 4-7, finds the three major candidates just three percentage points apart. Brady is ahead, but barely, followed by Smith and then Hales. That spread is smaller than the margin of error for the poll—4.2 percent—which still means anything can happen. In a poll released last week by OPB and KPTV, based on calls made before ballots began dropping, Hales led both Brady and Smith, but the spread was still just five points. (The reshuffling could be statistical noise, or it could reflect fallout over Hales—whom we endorsed—having been caught in a fibover his efforts to help Portland Public Schools back when he was on council.)

But perhaps the most interesting finding in the KATU poll? Among voters who have sent in ballots early (only 35,700 ballots have been counted so far), Brady, at 36 percent, led Smith by seven points and Hales by 10. The top two finishers after ballots are submitted on May 15, of course, get to keep playing until the November runoff.

Meanwhile, the KATU poll also shows a dead heat in the race between incumbent City Commissioner Amanda Fritz and State Representative Mary Nolan. Nolan leads Fritz 34 percent to 31 percent—but the poll also shows 15 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for one of the other candidates in the race, including Bruce Altizer, David Gwyther, and Teressa Raiford. If that holds up, that could send the race into a runoff, too.

PORTLAND, Ore. – With just over a week until ballots for Portland’s mayor are counted, the race has tightened to a three-way tie among the leading candidates, according to a KATU News/SurveyUSA poll released Monday.

State Rep. Jefferson Smith made the most significant gains on his rivals, businesswoman Eileen Brady and former City Commissioner Charlie Hales.

In a previous SurveyUSA poll released late in February, Brady led with 28 percent while Hales had 16 percent. Smith had 10 percent.

In Monday’s poll, however, Smith was just 1 percentage point behind Brady, garnering 27 percent of the vote. Hales was in third, capturing 25 percent. But all candidates were within the poll’s margin of error, making it a statistical tie.

Read more…

For the third consecutive election cycle, Old Town on Friday night witnessed one of the most extraordinary traditions in the race for Portland mayor: the Voodoo Doughnut eating contest.

All three major mayoral candidates—Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith—appeared and paid homage to the 24-hour doughnut phenomenon run by entrepreneurs Tres Shannon and Kenneth “Cat Daddy” Pogson.

But not all three of the frontrunners took part, and none won this year’s contest.

Hales, a former city commissioner, arrived early and left an hour before the contest began. Brady, a Portland businesswoman, follows a gluten-free diet. (“I respect her dietary needs,” Shannon said, “but we just don’t make gluten free doughnuts.”) Brady had a staffer take her place.

Only Smith chowed down and came in third, consuming three of the four Portland Cremes in his pink Voodoo box in front of a crowd of about 100 Old Town partiers.

The winner: write-in candidate Seth Grant. Occupy Portland candidate Cameron Whitten finished second.

The event, held at Voodoo’s original shop in Old Town, has in the past included the last two successful mayoral hopefuls: Tom Potter and Sam Adams. Neither of them ate the most doughnuts. Adams ate one. Potter took a bite from each of 11 doughnuts spelling out the last name of opponent, Jim Francesconi.