HMM: Secession-Minded Voters in Oregon Upend State’s Gubernatorial Race.
A gubernatorial race that had leaned Democratic all summer is now considered a toss-up, and Oregon could elect its first GOP governor since 1982.
Portland’s social unrest and left-wing politics are leading residents on the eastern fringes of Oregon to contemplate secession. Portland’s social unrest and left-wing politics are leading residents on the eastern fringes of Oregon to contemplate secession.
In Oregon’s unusual three-way competition for the governor’s office, voters who are dead set on becoming part of Idaho could make the difference. . . .
Ms. Johnson has raked in millions of dollars from Oregonians and some of the companies that call the state home, including $1.75 million from the founder of Nike, Phil Knight. She appears to have tapped into a vein of frustration among Oregonians who are, in her words, “really p—ed off” with the direction of the state and its government.
Oregon has, for years, been a mecca for political malcontents, everyone from anarchists to white supremacists to the rioters who carved out a “free protest zone” in downtown Portland and battled with police almost nightly during the summer of 2020’s social unrest.
While Portland has often dominated local, state, and national headlines for its political strife and disorder, the rural parts of the state have also seen no small measure of political alienation.
This alienation has fueled a growing movement among people who live on the eastern fringes of the state that want to break away from Oregon and become part of their more conservative neighbor, Idaho.
A spokesman for the Greater Idaho movement, as it is known, Matt McCaw, tells the Sun that he thinks the movement has mobilized many of Oregon’s more conservative voters in the eastern part of the state.
“People on the east side of the state see things very differently than people on the west side,” he said. “They make their living in a different way and see politics differently.” . . .
“I believe that the difference between urban Portland and the rest of the state is not based just on geography,” she said. “People that feel disrespected, disenfranchised are really p—ed off — they are angry.”
Well, they should be. And my paper on state secession continues to look timely.