If there’s one place that exemplifies the problems that have plagued blue America over the past 15 years, it’s Portland, Oregon.
Beginning after the Great Recession, the city became home to a deepening housing and homelessness crisis. In 2020, it was the site of some of the worst riots after the killing of George Floyd, exacerbated by the first Trump administration’s deployment of federal officials. That November, Oregonians also voted to decriminalize possession of all hard drugs, making it the first state in the country to take that step and, in the eyes of experts, helping fuel a crisis of public disorder. With its downtown hollowed out after COVID, and crime and homelessness rising amid nationwide spikes, even many Democrats acknowledged the city had entered a crisis.
That crisis — emblematic of the broader challenges facing Democratic-run states and cities after COVID — was a central issue in the 2022 gubernatorial race, in which former state House Speaker Tina Kotek narrowly prevailed. Today, Kotek’s governorship stands as a marker of the ways blue America has progressed in recent years — as well as the distance it still has to go. And there are growing signs that, at least in Oregon, voters are not yet sold on the progress.
The malaise
Until recently, Kotek’s re-election bid this year was not even on most observers’ radars; with Oregon having voted for Kamala Harris by 14 points, it’s difficult to envision a Republican flipping the state in the current political mood. Then there’s geography: with roughly 60% of the state’s population in the Portland metro area, Republicans can only go so far by maximizing margins in rural areas.
But there are some emerging signs Kotek may have more of a race on her hands than Democrats initially expected. She has faced middling popularity numbers since taking office, with one poll this spring finding 60% of residents in the Portland area, the most liberal part of the state, viewing her unfavorably. Last week, a Republican-sponsored poll found the governor trailing her Republican opponent by four points. The next day, the Cook Political Report shifted its assessment of the race in Republicans’ direction, the only gubernatorial contest it moved away from Democrats.
The dissatisfaction isn’t coming from nowhere. I recently spent several days in Portland and saw firsthand how the city, and broader region, continues to struggle. The downtown is littered with boarded-up storefronts, homelessness, and public drug use, especially after dark. More than once, I saw a small shop with signs describing recent violent break-ins.
One of several break-in sites I witnessed.
As is a common thread with these issues, they may be exaggerated or weaponized by some conservatives, but they are not right-wing inventions. Talking with people in and around the city, I got the sense that, even as the region has made real progress, the COVID era still looms large; outside a cannabis shop, one man wistfully told me life there was “so much different” before the pandemic.
The crime drop
At the same time, there’s evidence Portland has benefited from a nationwide decline in violent crime over the past few years. Since 2022, most violent crime metrics have fallen so rapidly that it’s baffled even many experts. FBI data indicates the overall national violent crime rate, which spiked when COVID hit, is now at its lowest point in decades, and preliminary data suggests 2025 saw the lowest murder rate in over a century. “It’s very challenging to say” the exact forces driving that decline, said Jeff Asher, who studies and writes often about crime trends. Still, he told me, there’s been a “remarkable drop in crime nationwide.”
Notably, public opinion has followed. In 2022, Gallup found Americans’ concerns about local crime hitting an all-time high. Its most recent survey last Fall found those concerns plummeting to the second-lowest level since it began asking the question.
Gallup survey, October 2025.
Crime data goes a long way towards explaining some recent, ostensibly unrelated, political dynamics — like the success of democratic socialists. The left struggled in many Democratic primaries, especially in major cities, during the immediate post-COVID period, when concerns about crime and disorder were strongest. With those worries now fading, one of moderate Democrats’ main bulwarks against the left has fallen away. The same dynamics could help explain Kotek’s struggles. According to FBI statistics, Oregon’s violent crime rate rose more quickly, stayed higher longer, and has taken more time to decline than the country overall. And while the rest of the country has seen violent crime drop below pre-COVID levels, Kotek’s state has not.
Moreover, concerns about crime and public disorder have always been about more than the technical rate itself (evidenced by decades of polling in which Americans incorrectly believed crime was increasing). And one key marker of disorder, especially in Democratic-run states, continues to be rampant homelessness, which is now reaching crisis levels nationwide: the number of homeless Americans hit 771,480 in 2025, an all-time high fueled by the highest-ever one-year jump. Oregon continues to be ground zero for that crisis: According to HUD data, it consistently ranks near the top of all states in overall unsheltered population. Last year, it also saw the second-highest jump in unsheltered homeless residents, second only to North Carolina, which had thousands of residents displaced by Hurricane Helene.
The politics
Oregon is unlike the rest of the country in another way: in 2024, it moved only 1.8% towards Trump, far below the national swing of 6% and ranking 43rd of the 50 states. That relative stability is largely a product of the state’s electorate having a larger share of college-educated white voters, the group Harris held up strongest among (this was a common thread among the states where Trump made the smallest inroads). That, plus the likely Democratic lean of the overall national environment, is likely all Kotek needs to carry her to victory. A source involved in the effort to elect Democratic governors expressed confidence in her chances, attributing the state’s competitiveness in 2022 and 2026 to its overall quality-of-life challenges rather than the governor herself.
In a statement, the Kotek campaign argued the state’s partisan lean will ultimately bear out — but did not dispute that the race is currently competitive. “[Republican nominee] Christine Drazan is desperate to show that she has a shot, but the reality is she is out of step with Oregon values,” a spokesperson told me. “As Oregon voters learn more about how Drazan has sided with Trump’s dangerous and unpopular agenda, they’re going to remember exactly why they rejected her four years ago.”
Kotek has also not been asleep at the wheel. She signed a repeal of the drug decriminalization law, made the revitalization of Portland a top focus, and has aggressively focused on housing, signing multiple measures aimed at ramping up construction. Notably, she has also not followed other Democrats in a march towards the center. An unambiguous progressive, she’s tried to cut a third path of sorts on homelessness and public disorder, prioritizing policies like shelter beds and, in the case of the drug re-criminalization law, still placing a higher emphasis on treatment than incarceration.
At the same time, residents are not incorrect to view the status quo unfavorably, and both polling and my anecdotal observation indicate that her efforts have yet to break through with the electorate. That’s part of a bigger issue for the Democratic Party right now: an Economist/YouGov poll out this week found crime remains Democrats’ biggest liability — more than taxes or national defense, traditional Republican strengths. And it points to how enduring the brand issue is for blue states. Crime, unaffordability, and issues of public disorder are not only driving population movements that are likely to aid Republicans in the years ahead. They have also, with the rise of nationalized media and vertical video, taken on national significance, becoming issues Democrats everywhere must answer for. Kotek will probably be fine this year. But her struggles show her party has a long way to go in tackling some of its biggest vulnerabilities.
Worthy reads
Kathy Hochul signed the nation’s first one-year moratorium on data centers this week. Katherine Long and Shelby Webb at Politico dive into the shockwaves it’s sending through the tech industry.
Stephen Neukam at NOTUS explores the growth of progressive-aligned campaign firms, whose explosion is challenging D.C. Democrats’ old guard and throwing some new uncertainty into the 2028 primary.
Cindy McCain, the former head of the World Food Program and widow of John McCain, is backing Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs for re-election, reports MSNow’s Vaughn Hillyard.
Milan Singh at The Argument makes a convincing case that the war in Gaza has had a profound impact on the Democratic Party’s coalition.
And the New York Times’s David Chen asks what Democratic victories in Iowa and Ohio’s gubernatorial races this year might look like if Republicans retain legislative supermajorities there.
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