Humane Voters Oregon has announced its endorsements for the May 21, 2024 primary election. See our full list of endorsed candidates here.
In the May primary election, voters registered with a political party elect their nominees for the general election, which will be in November. All registered voters vote in nonpartisan elections, including elections for county commissioners, in which the top two vote-getters move on to the general election unless one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote. (The primary ballot also includes several bond measures, but we have not taken a position on any of those at this time.) Counties began mailing ballots to voters May 1 and voters have until May 21 to mail their ballots back or drop them off at an official dropbox.
Our endorsements are based on several factors, including:
Our personal familiarity with the candidate and the candidate's views on animal welfare.
A candidate's voting record on issues affecting animals if the candidate has served in previous sessions of the Oregon Legislature.
A candidate's answers on our candidate questionnaire, which this year included questions on shelter-pet adoption, co-existence with wildlife, animal racing and humane slaughter requirements for animals raised for food, as well as some open-ended questions. We required candidates to complete our questionnaire to receive our endorsement.
If we endorsed a candidate, we believe the candidate, if elected, would support proposed laws and policies that would be good for animals, and oppose proposed laws and policies that would be bad for animals. We considered endorsements in all legislative and statewide races. If we did not endorse a candidate in one of those races, it could be because we do not support a candidate in that race, decided to remain neutral in the race, or did not receive a questionnaire response from a candidate we might otherwise support. We considered endorsements in local elections upon request after inviting all candidates in the same race to complete our questionnaire. We also invited all county commission candidates in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties to complete our questionnaire.
If we endorsed a candidate in your district, we hope you will support that candidate with your vote. Please also help us to financially support the campaigns of these candidates. We use donations to our political action committee, Humane Voters Oregon PAC, to support endorsed candidates. You can also volunteer for an endorsed candidate's campaign in the name of animal welfare by letting us know you are interested in doing that. Just send an email to info@humanevotersoregon.org with "Campaign Volunteer" in the subject line.
Finally, you can help make animal welfare more important by letting our endorsed candidates in your area know you are happy to seem them endorsed by us. You can do that by finding their campaign website and using the contact information there to congratulate them on the endorsement and tell them it is important to you.
Thank you for helping us promote animal welfare in Oregon's political process and elections!