Commissioner Pam Treece was ahead of fellow Commissioner Nafisa Fai in the contest for Washington County chair as the first election night results arrived on Nov. 3. The early count placed Treece in front in a race that also reflected a broader contest between progressive candidates and more moderate, business-friendly contenders in the county.
Returns available at 8 p.m. gave Treece 51.8% of the vote and Fai 47.3%. That put Treece’s advantage at 4,870 votes. Those figures represented an initial election night count, with the two sitting commissioners competing to succeed Kathryn Harrington as chair.
The race for the county’s District 4 seat was considerably closer. Former Hillsboro Mayor Steve Callaway led Hillsboro Councilor Kipperlyn Sinclair by only a few dozen votes in the early returns. Callaway had received 49.7% of the vote, compared with Sinclair’s 49.5%, leaving little separation between the two candidates at that stage of the count.
Together, the chair and District 4 contests offered a test of the growing progressive movement’s strength in Washington County this year. Fai and Sinclair were among a coalition of left-leaning candidates seeking offices across the ballot. Their campaigns challenged candidates including Treece and Callaway, who represented a more moderate and business-friendly approach.
The chair’s race followed Harrington’s resignation earlier in the fall. She stepped down after making an offensive gesture toward Fai at a public meeting. The election will determine who replaces her, with both candidates for the position already having served on the county commission for several years.
Fai first won election to the District 1 seat in 2020. Her victory made her the first person of color elected to the commission in Oregon’s most racially diverse county. Treece joined the commission through her election to the District 2 seat in 2018.
Affordability was a shared priority for all four candidates, although they described different approaches to addressing residents’ economic concerns. Treece and Callaway emphasized encouraging economic growth and attracting jobs to Washington County as ways to help people facing financial difficulties.
Fai and Sinclair instead emphasized putting everyday residents ahead of large corporations. That position came as some large corporations had recently received tax breaks for data center development, an issue that distinguished the candidates’ approaches to the county’s economic priorities.
