This afternoon I got an email from Hollie Oakes-Miller.
Family, Friends, and Comrades,
I am sad to announce that we are suspending the campaign for Mayor of Salem and I will be taking some time to rest, reflect, and refocus.
I am deeply grateful for all of your support through this campaign!! Thank you!
~Hollie
I'm not sure if "suspending" means Oakes-Miller is withdrawing from the Mayor race, or if she's just taking a break from campaigning.
UPDATE: Just got this message from someone who's usually knowledgeable about local political happenings.
"Just FYI, I have it on good authority that Hollie came up three signatures short of turning in the required number of valid signatures and failed to make the ballot for that reason. She will not be on the ballot."
Regardless, she had a Facebook page, a web site, and a pleasingly oak'y campaign image.
Today some friends and I were discussing how the race for Mayor might turn out with three candidates: Chane Griggs, Chris Hoy, and Hollie Oakes-Miller.
I theorized that Oakes-Miller, a founding member of Salem Democratic Socialists of America, likely would get around 10-15% of the vote, though this would have been hard to predict, since "democratic socialist" is really appealing to younger voters and quite a few others, while a danger sign to older voters and those wary of far-left politics.
A Mayor candidate would need to get 50% of the vote in the May primary, plus at least one more vote, to avoid a runoff in the November election. Assuming 10-15% for Oakes-Miller, that would have meant that if Griggs or Hoy got 50%, the other would get 35-40% of the vote.
Possible, but sort of unlikely given that Griggs and Hoy are both strong candidates. Griggs, because she's the Salem Establishment/Chamber of Commerce candidate; Hoy, because he's served on the City Council and has a law enforcement background.
However, if Oakes-Miller has dropped out of the Mayor race, this makes it virtually certain that either Griggs or Hoy will get over 50% of the May primary vote -- assuming Oakes-Miller doesn't remain on the ballot.
If she merely fails to campaign, yet remains a candidate, I suspect she'd still get 10-15% of the vote, requiring a runoff between Griggs and Hoy.
By the way, to burnish my Democratic Socialist credentials, I supported Hollie Oakes-Miller in her 2020 Ward 5 City Council race against Jose Gonzales, a conservative candidate. Oakes-Miller lost narrowly, despite being outspent by a lot.
I'm confident that if Progressive Salem and the progressives on the City Council had given Oakes-Miller some backing, she would have beaten Gonzales. Instead, they either sat this race out, or supported Gonzales -- for reasons that still escape me.
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