What Would a Third Major Candidate Mean for the Portland’s Mayoral Race?

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Thursday, January 21, 2016

Brendan Murray, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Gentleman, you may have some company. A new candidate is expected to jump into the race to be Portland’s next Mayor, joining Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey on the campaign trail. Experts told GoLocal the new challenger has the potential to shake up the race and complicate matters for both of the leading candidates.

Reports this week from news outlets across Portland named Sarah Iannarone as the newest candidate in the race for the top office in the Rose City. Iannarone, 42, is currently serving as the Assistant Director of First Stop Portland, a program she helped develop in 2008 while a doctoral student in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University.  

Iannarone serves under Director Nancy Hales at First Stop, the wife of incumbent Mayor Charlie Hales, who dropped out of the race last fall. Reports indicate that Iannarone may have the support of the outgoing executive.

Though she has never held public office previously, political analyst Len Bergstein told GoLocal that Iannarone might serve as a breath of fresh air to the race.

“She’s not a middle aged white guy, so that fills a different lane than Charlie Hales did or Ted Wheeler does, and there’s a hunger in Portland for someone to fill that other lane” Bergstein said. 

Ted Wheeler

Her Chances in the Race

Jim Moore, Political and Communications Director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation  at Pacific University, said that Iannarone would have an uphill battle in an already-underway Mayoral campaign.

“A race for Mayor is a face for name familiarity and she obviously does not have that,” Moore told GoLocal. “The campaign has only four months left until voting begins in May, and that does not give her very much time to get her campaign going.”

Moore said that if Iannarone does in fact have the support of Charlie Hales, it could be a big boon for the relatively unknown candidate. Still, Moore said she would have to turn that attention garnered from Mayor Hales into true support before voters head to the polls.

“That support will certainly help,” Moore said, “but she has to have strong issues and find ways to get them out to the public, whether that’s by getting into the Mayoral forums that are coming up, or doing something else.”

Jules Bailey

Bad News for Wheeler, Bailey?

Moore said that in the early stages, Iannarone’s campaign should not concern the campaign for Wheeler, who has been in a position of strength after being the only candidate in the race for weeks after Hales’ departure.

For Bailey, however it could be a different story. Moore pointed out that Iannarone could siphon anti-Wheeler voters away from Multnomah Commissioner Jules Bailey, who was seemingly Wheeler’s only challenger.

“It’s a very distinct possibility that she would steal the so-called ‘not-Wheeler’ vote,” Moore said. “Particularly if the voters, like I assume they might, treat Wheeler like an incumbent rather than a newcomer.”

Sarah Ivannarone could not be reached for comment in this story.

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Related Slideshow: SLIDESHOW: Ted Wheeler Announces Portland Mayoral Candidacy on Rooftop of Revolution Hall

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