By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
and GARY A. WARNER/Oregon Capital Bureau
Voters in Lincoln County – especially those affiliated with a political party – know how to do it. So far.
As of Thursday night, 60.4 percent of Lincoln County’s 38,445 registered voters had returned their Nov. 3 general election ballots, according to daily tallies generated by the Oregon Secretary of State’s office.
Of the two major parties, the 13,571 registered Democrats in Lincoln County had returned 75.1 percent of their ballots, while 67.8 percent of the 8,855 Republicans had returned theirs, according to the state.
The biggest group showing indifference to returning their ballots were voters not affiliated with any political party – there are 13,389 of them in Lincoln County. Just 40.7 percent had returned their ballots by the end of the day Thursday. The turnout of unaffiliated voters across Oregon is only 39 percent.
The deadline to vote in the general election is 8 p.m. Tuesday. People still needing to turn in their ballots have been advised to no longer mail them, but to drop them off at secured dropoff boxes located at seven city halls or the Lincoln County courthouse in Newport.
Voters can go to oregonvotes.gov/myvote to find out if their ballot has been received.
Tuesday was the first day that county clerks could begin scanning bar codes on returned ballots as the first step in tallying votes.
The Lincoln County elections office and the Oregon Secretary of State’s office will begin posting results on their websites at 8 p.m. Tuesday and the vast majority of vote totals available by the end of the night.
More than half of ballots have already been returned for the Nov. 3 election, as campaigns ramp up for the final days of what will likely be a record-breaking turnout.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s office said Wednesday that 1.69 million ballots had been returned out of 2,949,600 eligible voters in Oregon. That means 57.5 percent of ballots are already in, with five days left to drop off ballots.
Including Lincoln County, 13 of Oregon’s 36 counties already have turnouts of more than 60 percent.
Lincoln County clerk Dana Jenkins said Thursday he still expects a turnout of at least 80 percent in the county – on par with what it was during the 2016 presidential election.
“We’re just buried in all the ballots that have come in,” Jenkins told YachatsNews.com. He said the county experienced a “really big return” of ballots the first weekend after voters received them in the mail. That has slowly tapered off.
But he expects another surge Monday and Tuesday as the 8 p.m. deadline looms.
Ballots tilting Blue
Democrats have returned 71 percent of their ballots statewide, while 61.6 percent of Republican ballots are in.
Democrats have predicted a heavy turnout by party members to vote against President Donald Trump. But Republicans say their voters are also motivated and many live in less populous areas where ballot boxes are not as plentiful.
Mailing ballots creates more of a lag time between voting and tabulating turnout. Now that the deadline for mailing ballots has passed, the key will be to see if GOP returns close the gap with Democrats in the Secretary of State’s daily tabulations of arriving ballots in the run-up to Nov. 3.
Will presidential voting follow donations?
This week, the New York Times had a fascinating breakdown by ZIP codes all across the country of which areas were donating to the campaigns of President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden.
To no surprise, the Yachats Zip code showed 128 donations to Biden’s campaign and 21 to Trump’s.
In the Newport-Depoe Bay area, there were 322 donations to Biden compared with 87 to Trump.
In the 2016 general election, Lincoln County voters preferred Hilliary Clinton over Trump 12,501 to 10,039 while also casting 1,878 for two minor party candidates.
In Oregon four years ago, Clinton beat Trump 1,002,106 to 782,403 with another 144,000 votes cast for Pacific Green and Libertarian candidates.
Look to Tillamook and Columbia counties for presidential outcome
Anyone looking for a hint at who might win the presidential race should watch the vote tallies coming out of Columbia and Tillamook counties in Oregon. They are Oregon’s two “pivot counties” — places that went for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but flipped to Republican Donald Trump in 2016.
Ballotpedia, a political analysis website, found 206 out of 3,113 counties nationwide voted in the same pattern. Pivot counties can be found in 34 states. Iowa has the most, with 31 out of its total of 99 counties. In Maine, half of the state’s 16 counties pivoted.
Washington has five: Clallam, Cowlitz, Gray’s Harbor, Mason and Pacific. California and Idaho have none.
Columbia County went for Obama by 12% in 2008 and 5.2% in 2012. Trump won in 2016 by just under 11.5% of the votes. Tillamook County gave 9.9% of its vote to Obama in 2008 and 4.9% in 2012. Trump won by 5.6%.
Top races in Lincoln County
In Lincoln County there are races that are drawing lots of attention.
- Lincoln County Circuit Court: Two candidates are seeking to fill a six-year term as Lincoln County’s third elected circuit judge, in a race that has gotten more acrimonious as election day nears. Marcia Buckley, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Kate Brown in January is being challenged by Amanda Benjamin, who is working on her second, year-long contract as a temporary judge in Lincoln County and who was passed over for the appointment. YachatsNews.com has a full story and question-and-answer report from the two candidates.
- Lincoln County commission: Clair Hall is seeking her fifth, four-year term on the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners and is expected to defeat Joe Hitselberger, a brewery owner and cattle rancher from Seal Rock, who came in a distant second in the five-way primary race in May.
- Yachats: There are two races for what could be control of city government for the next two to four years. Mayor John Moore is challenged by Councilor Leslie Vaaler for a two-year mayoral term. Five people – incumbents Max Glenn and Jim Tooke, former councilor Greg Scott, 2018 mayor candidate Ann Stott and Parks and Commons Commission member Dawn Keller – are seeking two four-year terms on the City Council. Full stories on the mayoral race and the City Council races are on YachatsNews.com
- Waldport: City Council president Greg Holland and Councilor Karun Virtue are vying for a two-year term as mayor. Four others – Jayme Morris, Rick Booth, Heide Lambert and Greg Dunn – are seeking three open seats on the City Council. Jerry Townsend is unopposed to fill the remaining two years of Virtue’s council seat. A story on the candidates is on YachatsNews.com
- Oregon Senate District 5: The retirement of Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, has resulted in a hotly contested – and expensive – race to see who will replace him. Republican Dick Anderson, the mayor of Lincoln City who lost by just over 300 votes to Roblan in 2016, is squaring off against a well-funded Democrat and Coos County commissioner, Melissa Cribbins. A full story on their race is at YachatsNews.com
Ballot measures drawing biggest bucks
A look at state records for largest campaign spending shows the biggest spenders are ballot measure proponents.
Yes for a Healthy Future PAC, supporting Measure 108 — the cigarette tax — has spent $5.29 million on advertising with Washington, D.C. based Buying Time. The same PAC has spent $1.7 million with Winning Mark, a Portland-based advertising buyer. The initiative has seen large contributions from hospitals and health care businesses to fuel the ad buying.
Ballot measure campaigns are also drawing big contributions.
New York-based Drug Policy Action has contributed $2.17 million to More Treatment for a Better Oregon: Yes on 110 PAC, which would decriminalize possession of small amounts of most drugs. Drug Policy Alliance, which formed the PAC, was founded in 2000 to advocate for laws to end what it says are failed policies from the “war on drugs.”
Washington DC-based New Approach PAC has given $2.52 million to Yes for Psilocybin Therapy. It supports Measure 109, which would allow licensed therapy centers to use derivatives of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have contributed $500,000 to the More Treatment for a Better Oregon: Yes on 110 PAC advocating the drug decriminalization ballot measure. The couple made the contribution via their Palo Alto-based foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Oregon Democrats want to break a record
Oregon Democrats are hoping a big turnout could push their majorities in the state Legislature above the point where they can guarantee a quorum without Republicans.
Oregon is one of the few states requiring two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber be present to do business. GOP senators walked out in 2019 to stop a vote that would have likely approved a carbon cap-and-trade program. In 2020, Republicans in the House and Senate walked out over the issue again — though Rep. Cheri Helt, R-Bend, and Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, did not take part.
To surpass two-thirds majorities, the Democrats would have to add two seats to their current 38. In the Senate, they need two more seats from their current 18.
Getting to 40 House members would be a history-making record-breaker for Democrats. The party has never had more than 38 of the 60 seats in the House. Besides the current House, they also had 38 in two sessions during the Depression in the 1930s.
Democrats have had a majority in the House since 2013. It was evenly split between parties in 2011. The last time Republicans held a majority was in 2005.
Republicans last held a majority in the 30-member Senate in 2001. The parties were evenly split in 2003. Democrats have held the majority ever since. The record Democratic Senate majority is 24 seats in 1977. Republicans’ biggest majority was 29 in 1931.