The Portland Metro Chamber in partnership with DHM Research released the 2023 Voter Economy Benchmark Survey. The purpose of the survey is to track opinions about the economy, jobs, and community issues over time, assess voters’ top priorities, and measure voters’ attitudes about multiple tax problems.
Key Takeaways:
• Multnomah County residents expressing higher dissatisfaction (69% on the wrong track), Washington County (34% on the wrong track) and Clackamas County (40% on the wrong track).
• The number of people mentioning homelessness as the top issue increased from 34% in 2022 to 40% this year, while mentions of crime remained stable at 19%.
• 16% of voters named drug use and addiction as their top concern, a measurable jump from 2022.
• Only half of all tri-county voters have visited downtown Portland in the last 30 days.
• Half of voters express feeling unsafe in downtown Portland, with Portland residents more likely to feel safe during the day than the rest of tri-county voters with 80% of all voters feeling unsafe at night.
• Voters outside the City of Portland and Republican or non-affiliated voters are more likely to feel unsafe and are the least likely to have visited downtown in the last 30 days.
• Approximately five in ten tri-county voters harbor pessimistic views regarding their economic opportunities within the region.
• Seven in ten voters (69%) in the tri-county region feel that taxes are too high considering the services they receive.
• Negative perceptions of economic opportunities (47%) surpassed positive ones (42%) for the first time.
“Portland continues to face challenges and voters are not satisfied with the direction our community is heading in. Elected leaders need to prioritize core livability issues such as public safety, homelessness, mental health, and substance abuse services. Additionally, we know that our community is facing a completely unbalanced taxes system. This is a clarion call to reform our tax system or we will be unable to fund basic services. We need to continue to forge ahead together to make our city what we know it can be,” says Andrew Hoan, CEO and President of the Portland Metro Chamber.
For more details, please visit PortlandMetroChamber.com.
About the survey: Each year, the Portland Metro Chamber contracts with DHM Research to survey voters and better understand the shared experience of those who live here. From December 13 to December 19, 2023, DHM Research conducted a survey of 500 registered voters in the tri-county area. This hybrid (phone and text-to-online) survey included 250 voters in the City of Portland, and 250 voters from Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties who do not live within the Portland boundary. This is a sufficient sample size to assess voter opinions generally and to review findings by multiple subgroups, including age, gender, region, and party affiliation. Statistical weighting by age, gender, region, and party affiliation allows us to ensure results are representative of registered voters. The margin of error for the full tri-county sample is +/- 4.4%; and the for the City of Portland sample is +/- 6.2%.
