The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR Metro Area is made up of three cities that work together to create one unique metropolitan area. Politically, each of the three cities has its own mayor and city council, with Portland being the largest and most populous city among them. There are a number of state and federal representatives from the region as well, including US Senators, members of the US House of Representatives, and Oregon State legislators. All these representatives work together to ensure the interests of their constituents in the Metro Area are represented in both local and national politics. Additionally, local political issues such as public transportation funding or water policy are discussed at all levels of government.
The political climate in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metro Area is strongly liberal.
In Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metro Area 63.7% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 33.1% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 3.2% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro area remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 63.7% to 33.1%.
The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro area voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metro Area is strongly liberal.
Oregon is moderately liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Oregon: D D D D D D
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro Metro Area
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 296,945 contributions totaling $27,600,134 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $93 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 27,357 contributions totaling $11,093,508 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $406 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)