City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Mingus Mapps unleashed a scathing critique of The Oregonian in an email to supporters, accusing the newspaper of trying to “erase” his candidacy.
The email follows Mapps’ exclusion from two recent debates—one hosted by PAC Progreso Latino and the other by the Portland Metro Chamber—because he had not collected 750 individual contributions by the deadlines set by those organizations. Mapps, who oversees the Bureau of Transportation and is the fourth Black city commissioner in Portland’s history, framed his exclusion as part of a broader effort by the city’s political gatekeepers to marginalize his candidacy. “Portland’s power structure [is] trying to erase me from history, and now The Oregonian is complicit in that too,” he said.
Mapps did meet the requirement for Portland’s public campaign financing program, which mandates that mayoral candidates collect 750 contributions by August 27 to qualify for matching funds. However, despite qualifying, Mapps said he has yet to receive the funds, a delay he claims has hindered his campaign. “I have the ‘bad luck’ to be the only mayoral candidate who has qualified for matching funds but has yet to receive them from the city,” Mapps said.
He also took aim at his two main opponents, Rene Gonzalez and Carmen Rubio, accusing them of exploiting loopholes in campaign finance laws. “After Gonzalez and Rubio qualified for public matching funds, their top campaign strategists quit, only to start working for independent expenditure groups supporting their former bosses,” Mapps charged. “That might be legal, but it sure isn’t right.”
As the campaign moves forward, Mapps faces another potential hurdle with the upcoming City Club of Portland debate on October 8. It remains unclear which candidates will be invited to participate.
