Inspired by a recent Willy Week article (this one is almost as bad as the one about Merkley that Ben covered) I decided to talk about race and poverty in Portland. This is a topic that I know a decent amount about, since I wrote my thesis on turnout in Portland city elections. The bottom line? It's all about income.

Using census data and turnout data from recent years, I spent most of my senior year building various Multnomah County precinct-level maps of Portland. The end results were not surprising: northeast Portland and outer southeast Portland are very poor (as is downtown). Also not surprisingly is that these areas have high minority populations. Since turnout is often depressed in areas with high minority populations and low income, it should come as a surprise to nobody that the north and eastern parts of the city are hardly voting in its elections.

But what role does race actually have? In local elections, nothing significant. It's all about income.

As turnout rates drop, socioeconomic factors become increasingly more important in whether or not somebody votes or not. Turnout in Portland is usually around 37% for primary elections and 57% for general elections (remember, this is just City elections that we're talking about). By contrast, federal election turnout for the same range of elections is around 65% (my dataset included off-years).

I eventually came up with an equation with strong descriptive power using various socioeconomic and demographic variables. This equation was very good at predicting turnout in local elections but became weaker as the election became more important (that is, had higher turnout). This equation was primarily composed of socioeconomic factors related to the average income of a precinct.

There are certainly things that Portland could be doing better to connect with its small minority population and encourage diversity. However, we also need to look at the larger picture of engaging the poor and otherwise disenfranchised communities. It's a struggle, and one that should be taking place in every community in the nation; however, Portland, with its strong drive for change and creative talent, definitely has the chance to step to the front and take the lead. Let's do it.