Oregon progressives, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Oregon gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek, congressional candidate Val Hoyle, U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley rallied for support at the University of Oregon Erb Memorial Union amphitheater Thursday morning.
Kotek and Republican candidate Christine Drazan are polling almost dead even, according to polling site FiveThirtyEight, with independent candidate Betsy Johnson dropping to her lowest approval rating yet.
The politicians encouraged young people to vote, with Wyden, who is running for re-election, citing census data showing 65-year-olds lead 24-year-olds at the polls by 20 percentage points.
While the student vote seems to flounder compared to other demographics, the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement found that the student voting rate increased 14 percentage points between 2016 and 2020.
Students attending the event expressed frustrations with a lack of government action.
Vithika Goyal, a senior studying marine biology who attended the event, said she was frustrated that the conversation about carbon neutrality in Oregon has not resulted in enough actionable policy.
“It’s just words,” Goyal said. “We’re getting to a point where that’s not feasible. It’s scary that we’re at the edge of this barrier already.”
Goyal said good intentions on the part of the voters is not enough and that she wants to see structural change happen from the top down too.
“We as constituents can do things, but it’s a higher up issue,” Goyal said. “There’s money fueling the continuous usage and exploitation of these resources.”
Independent campaign funding has been a challenge for Democratic candidates this year. Phil Knight gave $3.75 million to Betsy Johnson and $1.5 million to Christine Drazan.
According to Eugene Weekly, an independent campaign financiere released a flyer disguised as Green Party messaging condemning Hoyle.
Doyle Canning, the runner up to Hoyle in the Democratic primary, said this was a tactic to “split the democratic vote” in the Congressional District 4 race. The flyers depict Hoyle as accepting campaign financing from special interest groups and corporations, a message that progressives might associate with a conservative or independent candidate.
“That kind of deception, it’s disgusting,” Canning said.
Sanders told the crowd to get out and vote and to get involved in politics, though he noted that the economic disadvantage facing the younger generation is a significant barrier to this
“I want you to think about running for school board, city council, state legislature, president, whatever you want to do,” Sanders said. “But I don’t want you, when you engage in politics, to have to spend half your life hustling money from billionaires.”
Haven Meyer and Teddy Coates, both freshman political science majors, said they hadn’t been following Val Hoyle’s campaign too closely, but were excited to vote in such an important midterm election.
Coates said he was frustrated with the lack of options the current voting system offers to voters and said he hopes to see Oregon adopt ranked choice voting, a voting system that ranks candidates in order of preference order, in future elections. Coates said he was for campaign finance reform.
“I mean, thank you, Phil, for this beautiful campus we’re on, but I really don’t like billionaires meddling in local elections,” Coates said.
Dan Hagengruber, an anesthesiologist who treated the victims of the Thurston High School and Umpqua Community College shootings, spoke to students about voting for Measure 114, which would limit manufacturing and distribution of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds and require more intensive screening for individuals who want to buy a gun.
Hagengruber said his wife felt motivated to get involved in gun reform after the Robb Elementary School shooting. She joined Lift Every Voice Oregon, a volunteer organization that was part of a coalition to put Measure 114 on the ballot in the midterms. When its members learned he was a physician who had cared for the victims of two mass shootings, they encouraged him to join.
Hagengruber said he talked to students at the event who were worried about Measure 114 making firearms they already own illegal.
“The biggest misconception is that they’re going to become felons because of what they already own,” Hagengruber said. “Things will be grandfathered in. No one’s going to have to turn in their guns.”
Measure 114 is one of four Oregon measures on the ballot. Ballots must be returned in person or postmarked by Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. This drop box locator shows where the nearest ballot drop-off box is.
Oregon Democratic leaders and Senator Bernie Sanders wave to the crowd, which was made up of more than 3,000 attendees, after Thursday’s Tina for Oregon rally. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders joined Oregon’s Democratic party leaders at the University of Oregon’s Erb Memorial Union for a rally in support of Oregon Democrat Gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek, on Thursday, Oct., 27th, 2022. (Ian Enger/ Emerald)
