Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is facing a recall effort after a group filed petitions on July 1, with volunteers starting to gather signatures on July 9. Petitioners have until Sept. 29 to submit at least 47,788 valid signatures to put the recall election on the ballot.
The recall effort is organized by Total Recall PDX. Audrey Caines was hired in June to work as campaign manager for the recall, and Melissa Blount was named chief petitioner. Petition language cites the following as reasons for a recall election: “Portlanders are ready to recover and we can’t afford to waste the next three-and-a-half years. Portland deserves better than an uninspiring mayor reelected with less than 47% of the vote. We deserve a mayor who was elected without illegally loaning his campaign $150,000 of his personal money. Our neighbors, families, and businesses deserve a mayor who prioritizes their safety and well-being.”
Wheeler was elected as mayor of Portland in 2016 with 54% of the vote, and he won re-election in 2020 with 46% of the vote. The mayor’s office had not issued a statement regarding the recall effort as of July 9, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The number of valid signatures required to force a recall election in Oregon is 15% of the total number of votes cast in the public officer’s electoral district for all candidates for governor at the last election at which a candidate for governor was elected to a full term. Signatures are required to be turned in no later than 90 days after the petition is filed.
In the first half of 2021, Ballotpedia tracked 164 recall efforts against 262 officials. This was the most recall efforts for that point in the year since the first half of 2016, when we tracked 189 recall efforts against 265 officials. In comparison, we tracked between 72 and 155 efforts by the midpoints of 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
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