In announcing plans to run for Portland mayor yesterday, State Treasurer Ted Wheeler called those intentions the "most poorly kept secret in Oregon politics." Evidence of that leaky secret is pretty clear in his first round of campaign finance reporting.
Though he's not required to report contributions until October, Wheeler began releasing details about financial support Thursday. It's a similar scenario to the near real-time donations Mayor Charlie Hales has revealed for months.
The new filings show Wheeler's raised more than $25,000 since the beginning of September, with more than $11,000 of that arriving in his campaign's bank account before he formally announced intentions to run. The largest single contribution, $5,000, comes from Wheeler's brother, Thomas, but there are some notable items on the list.
For instance, Portland Spirit President Daniel Yates contributed $2,500 to Wheeler on September 1. Yates, perhaps not coincidentally, is on the board of the Central Eastside Industrial Council, the business group currently locking horns with the mayor's office over plans to move the homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too to a plot near SE 3rd and Harrison. (Wheeler has promised he'd do a far better job than Hales has on homelessness, but he's not weighed in on moving the well-respected encampment.)
Another sizable contribution, $2,500, came in on September 2 from Azam Qayum, president of Cascade Pacific Holdings, a Lake Oswego-based real estate firm. It's worth noting, since Wheeler's been throwing soft shade at Hales over his financial relationship to property development types. While the treasurer's not come out directly against those donations, he's said the "race isn't going to be won based on who can raise money from real estate developers," and that Portland City Hall "won't be for sale" when he's in office. Draw your own conclusions about what he's getting at.
What else? Well, New Seasons co-founder Eileen Brady—who lost to Hales in 2012, and who was cheering wildly for Wheeler at Wednesday's event—has kicked in $1,000. So has Jim Brunberg, owner of Revolution Hall, where Wheeler held his campaign announcement.
Wheeler, who comes from a timber fortune himself, is pretty clearly making a statement here—though you could debate how it'll be received by the electorate. For months, the mayor's been flashing campaign donations. He's got more than $100,000 to date. In less than two weeks, Wheeler's racked up nearly a quarter of that.
As we said in this week's paper: "Just like that, Portland's got an honest-to-god mayoral race on its hands."
