Sen. Bonham: Takeaways from the local election

Takeaways from the local election
By Oregon State Senator Danial Bonham,
Oregon State Senate Republican Leader

Oregon saw interesting trends showing a disconnect between policies and party considerations amongst voters. On one hand, voters rejected the liberal measures regarding ranked choice voting and the socialist corporate tax – which is huge for our electoral and economic systems.

On the other hand, Oregon voters rejected the true public safety attorney general candidate and gave the state Democrats a supermajority in both the House and the Senate. As we know, a supermajority will allow the democrats in the state legislature to pass taxes and controversial measures regardless of minority opposition.

As an honest reflection, I would attribute many factors to the disconnect of Oregon as it relates to national trends. As mentioned before, many left-leaning residents are fleeing our Democratic cities and flooding into our more moderate/conservative areas, changing the political climate. The new electoral lines drawn also added to this change. Further, national politics tend to skew local perspectives on elections. This results in down-ticket voting surges.

I will always stand by my fight for what works for everyday Oregonians. Our state needs to lower prices, strengthen public safety, fix our roads, make our state wildfire resilient and better our education. We need to continue to have these discussions. With the new supermajority – resident oversight is more critical than ever before.