Oregon is a state with a robust political climate, and issues of local importance are debated both within the state legislature and amongst Oregon’s citizens. The two main political parties that compete for seats in the Oregon state government are Democrats and Republicans, with Republican representation in the Govornor's office and Democratic representation in both the House and Senate. Currently, Democrats control both chambers of the Oregon State Legislature as well as hold all statewide offices except Governor. There is also a strong presence of independent voters who are registered with neither party. Local candidates for office can involve representatives from each major party or even run independently to represent their local communities. Oregon citizens take politics seriously, engaging in dialogue on current issues important to them.
The political climate in Oregon is moderately liberal.
In Oregon 56.5% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 40.4% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 3.2% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, Oregon remained very strongly Democratic, 56.5% to 40.4%.
Oregon voted Democratic in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
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.
Oregon, 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 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 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 Oregon
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 473,389 contributions totaling $36,912,741 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $78 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 46,862 contributions totaling $11,678,938 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $249 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)