Taking the Local Approach
If we’ve learned anything about polls since the stunning election of Donald Trump in 2016, it’s that they’re best approached with skepticism. But even so armed, it’s impossible to read the results of a voter poll released this month by Oregon Public Broadcasting as anything but bad news for Oregon’s political establishment. Bigly bad news.
The February poll was conducted by DHM, a longstanding and credible Oregon polling firm, and involved a representative collection of registered voters. It has a margin of error of about 4%. So, while a certain degree of skepticism is warranted, there’s no blaming a slapdash Survey Monkey job for the following results:
73% of respondents say the state is on the wrong track.
If only Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates were on the ballot, 47% would vote for the Republican and only 29% for the Democrat.
And the kicker: Significantly more voters feel negatively about Gov. Kate Brown (72%) and Joe Biden (63%) than Donald Trump (54%).
Why are people so dissatisfied? There are plenty of reasons, no doubt. One reason, however, connects the three most important problems identified by voters: incompetence. The top problems are homelessness, government/leadership and public safety/crime. To identify government and leadership as problems is, by definition, to challenge the competence of incumbents. Homelessness and crime have increased for many reasons, the most significant being the failure of officeholders to make the difficult and potentially controversial decisions required to address them. Voters know this.
And as unpopular as the governor may be, the competence problem is far from hers alone. She does bear responsibility for many policy and execution failures, from excessive school closures during the COVID pandemic to the inability of the state to distribute unemployment benefits at a time of unprecedented need. But homelessness and crime are, by and large, local problems that can be addressed most effectively by competent city councilors, county commissioners, district attorneys, sheriffs and other locally elected officials.
OPB released its voter survey in an April 21 story announcing an upcoming series that examines specific areas of discontent and what the next governor can do to help. This focus seems oddly misaligned as a way of addressing the top problems identified by OPB’s own survey. Voters should care deeply about the gubernatorial race, of course. But if they want to enlist more competent people to address crime and homelessness, they need to devote just as much attention to local elections. The people who hold these offices have failed them every bit as much as Kate Brown, Joe Biden or Donald Trump.