May 2026 Endorsements: All the Candidates

Brief briefs on every race

Downtown Portland, from the Ritz Carlton bar (April 2026)

It’s been a busy few weeks at Mortlandia. We went deep on:

• The Gas Tax (Measure 120)

• The Historical Society Levy (Measure 26-261)

• We interviewed a Gubernatorial Candidate

What else is there?

Oh yeah. Literally all the candidates on the ballot!

Some of these races are genuinely interesting but most of them are not. I’ll spend my words accordingly.

As usual, all views are my own¹

US Senate

I disagree with Jeff Merkley sometimes. For one, he supported the Liz Warren-led initiative to ban institutional investors from owning single family rental units (thus, effectively, from building them). This is misguided slopulist nonsense that would actually increase rental costs nationwide. It’s honestly embarrassing, and he should do better.

That said, he’s otherwise a generally decent progressive Democrat and he’s willing to push for necessary structural change at the national level (DC statehood, abandoning the filibuster, etc.). His opponent (Paul Damian Wells) isn’t a credible candidate.

Sometimes people in your coalition do dumb things. It’s important to call them out for it but it’s just as important to vote for them when they’re the best choice for the job.

D - Jeff Merkley
R - Unendorsed²

US House of Representatives

Not much to say here. Four decent incumbents, none with meaningful challengers.

OR-1, D - Bonamici
OR-3, D - Dexter
OR-5, D - Bynum³
OR-6, D - Salinas

OR-1/3/5/6, R - Unendorsed

If you’re in OR-4, I’d take a hard look at the alternatives to Democratic incumbent Hoyle but that’s Eugene and the southern coast, well outside of my beat.

Metro Council President

Everyone across the political spectrum is endorsing Juan Carlos González. When that happens, sometimes it’s because the candidate is competent and has earned the respect of all comers. Sometimes it’s because the competition is weak. In this case, it’s both. Metro has its challenges but JCG appears to be aware of them. To wit, his framing on the 2030 SHS renewal — that Metro has to prove accountability before asking voters to extend the tax — is the right one.

I don’t see much reason to buck the trend here.

Juan Carlos González

Judges

Voting for judges is… weird. We don’t have great visibility into their approach to justice and once they are elected, they are rarely challenged. Were it up to me, all of these judges would be appointed. But here we are.

Relevant to Oregon judgeships, I tend to be the sort of person who is very skeptical of state power (e.g. I don’t reflexively believe that cops tell the truth — quite the contrary) but I also believe that crime is a real negative shock to people’s lives and we should prosecute accordingly, not because I like punishment but because I believe we should use data-driven approaches that actually reduce crime.

Also relevant to Oregon judgeships: I voted for Measure 110 and think it was directionally sound but I also think implementation was catastrophically poor and the lack of teeth for non-compliance was a huge mistake as written.⁴

I don’t have a particularly strong opinion on Measure 114 and honestly don’t even remember how I voted on it.⁵

4th Circuit, Position 2

This race is why I don’t like voting for judges! A bunch of candidates who look solid, all with pretty different backgrounds. Should you support one of the experienced litigators? The former Army JAG? The public defender? The assistant DA?

For me it came down to Juliet Britton and Laura Rowan.

On paper Britton is the strongest fit for Nan Waller's specific seat (mental health court). An ex-JAG, she’s got 8 years of judicial bench experience at a smaller court, she emphasizes data driven decision-making and she helped set up a drug court in Beaverton. That’s a pretty impressive list!

But ultimately I’m going to default to the folks I trust the most: a lawyer friend who works in the system, and the editorial judgement of the Willamette Week. They both went for Rowan. Judicial temperament is the kind of thing insiders can see and I can’t.

Laura Rowan

4th Circuit, Position 5

Both candidates seem qualified. Casalino is a career prosecutor, whereas Perini-Abbott has done federal clerkships, worked as a public defender, done civil litigation, and as a law professor.

Based on depth of experience and vibes/my priors (federal clerkship + law professor = probably smart and thoughtful?):

Joanna Perini-Abbott

4th Circuit, Position 12

One of my best friends is very good lawyer. Her husband is also a very good lawyer. They work in very different fields of law back East but they both have told me the same thing: “if a judge is up for re-election and they have a challenger, always vote for the challenger”

Among lawyers, there’s an (in my opinion questionable) norm to never run against an incumbent unless that incumbent is actively terrible. Completely negligent, or incompetent, or real trouble in some way.

Adrian Brown is the incumbent.

Both the DA’s office AND the public defenders community think Brown’s rulings are “capricious”. Vasquez won’t even try measure 11 felonies in her courtroom. She missed the filing deadline for the voter’s guide. I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but it stinks.

Peter Klym is the challenger. Klym is an appropriately qualified public defender.

Peter Klym

4th Circuit, Position 14

Almquist, Brown, Gerke, Hagedorn, and Savage all seem well-qualified. Ultimately I was sold by this line in the Willamette Week:

When we asked his competitors whom they would pick if not themselves, Hagedorn easily won out.

That sort of insider consensus is enough to tip the scales for me.

Joseph Hagedorn

Labor and Industries Commissioner

BOLI is a mess. To quote direct from the Nov. 2025 audit:

What we found

• Management decisions reflect poor planning and strategic neglect.

• BOLI’s failure to maintain internal policies and procedures puts continuity and performance at risk. Turnover in leadership and management contributed to instability.

• The agency’s challenges weaken enforcement of Oregon’s labor and civil rights laws.

• BOLI’s success depends on clear priorities and aligned workforce.

Every indication is that Christina Stephenson inherited the BOLI mess; she didn’t create it. But she’s also been in office since 2022. I’d expect a late ‘25 audit to show some real progress. Instead she’s just made some dubious calls around prevailing wage laws rather than focus on institutional clean up.

Chris Lynch is an underfunded but otherwise credible alternative (he’s worked inside BOLI for ~15 years, been quite critical in the last 7). I’m actually surprised none of the papers endorsed him. That, in itself is a bit of a red flag (the papers often know scuttlebutt that us peons don’t) but since I found no other particularly troubling info about him, I’ll go out on a limb and endorse Chris Lynch.

Oregon State House / Oregon State Senate

My house district (HD-43, Tawna Sanchez) is effectively uncontested.

The interesting races are all outside of Portland. I don’t have bandwidth to write them up but, for what it’s worth, here’s how I lean:

• HD-27 (Beaverton/Cedar Hills) - Hartmeier-Prigg

• HD-38 (Lake Oswego) - Nguyen

• SD-15 (Hillsboro/Forest Grove) - Sollman

Oregon Governor

Whether you’re a D or an R, the answer is obvious. A write-in for PENCIL.

Yes, really.

Kotek is going to win the primary and, in all likelihood, the general. In 2024, Gaza protest voters wrote in “Uncommitted” during the Democratic primary to signal their frustrations with the party on its Gaza/Israel positioning. The same idea holds here: it’s a small protest about the state of Oregon schools while viable avenues for improvement exist.

For more info, see my interview with PENCIL.

Someone else’s ballot, because they’re handwriting is better than mine (May 2026)

1. To recap, my views tend to be socially liberal and pro-strong social safety net but still incrementalist, pragmatic, and pro-capitalism/markets.

As such, Right-leaning folks sneer at me and call me “woke”. Leftists will throw the word “Abundance” at me like it’s a slur. I embrace both of these terms with pride.

I also passionately believe BOTH that we need to be honest and critical about the world, because trade-offs are real AND. that positive-sum approaches to problems are possible. I hope you believe these things to be true too. If you don’t, I hope maybe, just maybe, to convince you.

2. While Donald Trump is in office I cannot in good conscience endorse Republicans for national office, even the marginally more reasonable ones.

3. Extra credit goes to Janelle Bynum who calls me now and again to fundraise and she’s charming enough that I always feel a little bad when I inevitably say “no”.

On the other hand, She did vote for the Laken Riley Act, a bad law and a true own goal. I get it; she’s in a swing district and this is political triangulation. But I disagree that this was even a politically smart place to flex one’s moderate bona fides and it’s a mistake on the merits. So in the same way that I am frustrated with Merkley for the unthinking slop to the innumerate wing of his left-populist base, I am frustrated with Bynum’s spinelessness when she was faced with an important vote.

Still think folks should vote for her though. Again: coalitions are hard.

4. The ‘$100 ticket’ approach was the worst of both worlds. It gave decriminalization opponents a fig leaf of ‘see, there are consequences’ but in practice there were no consequences at all.

5. I’m broadly supportive of data driven approaches to gun control but Measure 114 was pretty sloppy and I don’t love legislation-via-ballot-measure. I could see myself having gone either way!