The Mayor of Portland, Oregon is the official head of the city of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. The officeholder is elected for a four-year term and has no term limits. By law, all elections in Portland are nonpartisan. The current mayor is

Ted Wheeler Edward Tevis Wheeler (born August 31, 1962) is an American politician who has served as the mayor of Portland, Oregon since 2017. He was Oregon State Treasurer from 2010 to 2016. Wheeler was elected in the 2016 Portland mayoral election and re ...

, who has served since 2017, and was first elected in the 2016 election.

Duties and powers

Portland uses a

city commission government City commission government is a form of local government in the United States. In a city commission government, voters elect a small commission, typically of five to seven members, typically on a plurality-at-large voting basis. These commissione ...

, the only major city to do so. The mayor and commissioners are responsible for legislative policy and oversee the various bureaus that oversee the day-to-day operation of the city. The mayor serves as chairman of the council, and is responsible for allocating department assignments to his fellow commissioners. His post is largely honorific; most powers exercised by mayors in cities of Portland's size are vested in the council as a whole. However, the mayor does have some powers, such as declaring an emergency and acting as police commissioner.

Elections

The mayor is elected in citywide election. Elections follow a two-round system. The first round of the election is called the

primary election Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

. The candidate receiving a majority of the vote in the primary is elected outright. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two candidates advance to a runoff election, called the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

. The City Charter also allows for write-in candidates. The mayor is elected to a four-year term with no term limits. The office of Mayor is officially

nonpartisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...

by state law, although most mayoral candidates identify a party preference. Mayoral elections happen in conjunction with the

United States presidential election The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not dire ...

. The most recent election was the 2020 election, when incumbent

was re-elected in the November runoff.

List of mayors

References

{{reflist Government of Portland, Oregon

Duties and powers

Elections

List of mayors

See also

References