Local News

Campaign 2012 through the eyes of UW faculty and students

With the Oregon GOP primary just days away, the UW Election Eye team rented an RV and headed down to the City of Roses for the days leading up to the election.

PORTLAND, Ore.–

(Photo by UW Election Eye)

Cheers to all the moms out there!

Early Saturday, May 12th, a crew from the UW Election Eye team headed south on Interstate-5 to Portland to cover the lead up to Tuesday’s primary election. In our quest for stories, we made our way to the downtown core to get a feel for the city and its inhabitants.

(Photo by Derek Walker/UW Election Eye)

With a Portland-newbie in tow, our first stop of the morning was landmark Voodoo Doughnut to get our hands on a famous bacon maple bar or two.

(Photo by Derek Walker/UW Election Eye)

We had hoped the line outside would be a great place to get the pulse for Portland politics. Unfortunately, the bulk of visitors to VooDoo on this sunny Saturday were out-of-towners.

So bellies full, we continued the quest.

(Photo by Derek Walker/UW Election Eye)

As we wandered the streets, we discovered that many Portlanders are working hard to keep true to the sentiment shown above.

Exhibit A:

(Photo by Derek Walker/UW Election Eye)

These surfing pups were enjoying a ride down Broadway.

Not too far away, in the Saturday Market, we found a few Core volunteers doing their part to register voters.

(Photo by Derek Walker/UW Election Eye)

Johnny Richey, a Core volunteer working to engage Hispanic and African-American populations in the presidential election stated, “I didn’t vote until I saw someone like me. With the recession going on, I got up off my butt and quit complaining and did something about it.”

(Photo by Derek Walker/UW Election Eye)

His work does encourage a vote for Obama, but he does his best not to argue with potential voters. Instead, Richey said, “We’re here to register people to vote, not here to debate.”

Later in the afternoon we interviewed one of the top three candidates in the Portland mayoral race–stay tuned for an update as the intrepid UWEE crew follows up with the other two top contenders.

In honor of their latest mayoral battle in the form of a doughnut eating content, we ended our first day in Portland as we began it: with Voodoo Doughnuts.

Voodoo Doughnuts comes in all shapes and flavors at the Northeast Portland branch on May 12, 2012. (Photo by Elizabeth Wiley/UW Election Eye)