Every campaign and PAC has to report who it pays. Follow the business-backed money through its PACs and out the other end, and it lands with a short list of firms. Several of them also work for Portland’s best-known Democratic and progressive campaigns.
On the left: the business-backed candidates and the PACs behind them. In the middle: the firms they paid since January 2025, sized by how much. On the right: the Democratic and progressive clients those same firms worked for this cycle. Tap a circle to follow its lines; tap a firm to open its profile.
Firm also paid by Democrats or progressivesNo Democratic or progressive clients found
Doug Moore, executive director of the Chamber-aligned United for Portland Action Fund, told Willamette Week the Chamber’s aim is to “stop DSA from taking over the council.” Before that came People for Portland’s ads about a “broken city” and the push to move climate money to police. These seven firms were paid by the Chamber-aligned PAC network, by Community Safety Coalition, or by committees that hire Kevin Looper’s firm. Six were also paid by business-backed candidates whose donors overlap with Republican and Portland conservative donors; the seventh, Looper’s Wheelhouse Northwest, was paid by Sharon Meieran, whose donors haven’t been measured.
PACs selling the messageCandidates, with the share of their donors who also give to Republicans or Portland conservatives
Sources and methodPAC side: every payment since 2006 from the Chamber-aligned PAC network (United for Portland Action Fund, Coalition for Portland’s Future, Portland Alliance PAC, Oregon Prosperity Action Fund, goPDX; the Portland Mercury reports the Chamber’s Jon Isaacs maintains them), Community Safety Coalition, Portland Accountability PAC and Fixing Multnomah County, from a Ballast vendor search of ORESTAR and the committees’ own exports, Oct 19, 2026. Candidate side: the same searches. Percentages are the share of each candidate’s donors over $100 who have also given to Republicans or Portland conservatives, from The donors page; Novick’s 40% is for donors new since 2025. Meieran’s donors haven’t been measured. Morel Ink’s $80K from Coalition for Portland’s Future counts its Oct 28–31, 2024 payments; the committee’s export also lists $36.6K in Oct 21–23 rows that repeat several of the same amounts, which we left out because we couldn’t rule out duplicates. Dates show when each payment was made; Community Safety Coalition’s 2022 payment to CN4 predates its 2026 police-funding initiative. Quote: Doug Moore, United for Portland Action Fund, to Willamette Week, via Portland Mercury, Sept 24, 2026. People for Portland: OPB, Sept 8, 2021. The fix multCo billboard points to FixingMultnomahCounty.com (Portland Mercury); Fixing Multnomah County (#24526) is a separate committee that pays Wheelhouse. A firm appearing here was paid by both sides of this chart; it does not mean the firm wrote any particular ad.
Case files
Two firms, both sides
Springwater Partners
Paige Richardson’s consulting firm. She sits on the board of Emerge Oregon, which trains Democratic women to run for office.
Paid $66K by the police-oversight measure and $168K by Chloe Eudaly.
Paid $418K by Jo Ann Hardesty’s campaign.
Helped design a poll on repealing Preschool for All, pitched to Tim Boyle and other business leaders. She told Willamette Week, “I often don’t agree with them on policy issues.”
Paid $10K by Community Safety Coalition, the PAC behind the failed initiative to move Clean Energy Fund money to police. Its big funders: the police union, Jeff Swickard ($250K) and Tim Boyle ($100K).
Paid $103K by Olivia Clark and $99K by Kellie Torres between Oct 7 and Oct 14.
Untidy Origins
Portland ad and video shop. Clients this cycle include OEA, the Working Families Party, the Portland teachers’ PAC and Tobias Read.
Paid $44K by Steve Novick.
Paid $49K by Julia Brim-Edwards, with $34K more owed.
Paid $30K by Mitch Green, the progressive councilor the DitchMitch billboards attack.
Every firm paid by a 2026 Portland City Council or Multnomah County Chair campaign, or the PACs behind them. Tap a firm for its profile: who runs it, every Portland race that paid it, every other Oregon committee that paid it, and its history.
Sources and methodORESTAR, pulled Oct 19, 2026. “Business side” and “Progressive side” are cash paid since Jan 1, 2025 by the 2026 Portland City Council District 3 and 4 and Multnomah County Chair campaigns and the PACs backing the business-backed slate (Unity PAC, DitchMitch, fix multCo, goPDX, Go Portland Go, Portland Alliance PAC, Oregon Prosperity Action Fund, Coalition for Portland’s Future); Sharon Meieran (County Chair) is counted with the business-backed and conservative side. Portland Accountability PAC, which hired Kevin Looper’s firm Wheelhouse Northwest, passed The donors page test as a Portland conservative committee. Fixing Multnomah County, which also hires Wheelhouse, is grouped with them by our judgment; its donors weren’t tested. Candidate committees covered: Torres, Novick, Morillo, Koyama Lane, León (D3); Clark, Zimmerman, Arnold, Green, Evenstar, Beausoleil Smith (D4); Brim-Edwards, Meieran, Singleton (County Chair). Cronlund reported no transactions since January 2025. “All Oregon” adds every other Oregon committee that paid the firm in 2025–26. “All years” is a Ballast vendor search of every Oregon committee in ORESTAR since 2006; for the four busiest firms (Winning Mark, Elevated Campaigns, Morel Ink, Hollywood Impress) that search caps out, so their all-years figures are minimums; where a firm’s 2025–26 payments are newer than that search, we raised its all-years figures to match. Polity Staffing is a payroll service, so most of what it’s paid passes through as campaign staff wages. “Owed” is accounts payable reported but not yet paid, kept out of the totals. Spelling variants were combined after checking payee addresses; unrelated businesses with similar names were dropped. Payments to individual people are grouped and not named.
Follow the money
From the funders, through the PACs, to the firms
FundersPACs and campaignsFirmsStaff, fees and small vendorsShare of a candidate’s donors over $100 who also fund Republicans or Portland conservatives
PAC money: who funds the PACs, and who the PACs pay
Candidate money: who the business-backed candidates pay
Sources and methodCash contributions and expenditures reported to ORESTAR, pulled Oct 19, 2026 from each committee’s full transaction export: United for Portland Action Fund (#21023), Unity PAC (#25358), goPDX (#25330), DitchMitch (#25329), fix multCo (#25331), Coalition for Portland’s Future (#23696), Portland Alliance PAC (#21819), Oregon Prosperity Action Fund (#24814), Go Portland Go (#24993), Jessie Burke’s Positivity PAC (#23326), Keep Portland Safe PAC (#4167), Portland Metro Fire Fighters PAC (#223), and the candidate committees of Torres (#24897), Clark (#23199), Arnold (#23295), Brim-Edwards (#21206), Novick (#15109) and Zimmerman (#17629). 2025–26 runs Jan 1, 2025 through each committee’s latest filing (Oct 8–16). Bills reported as owed (accounts payable) are left out of the bands so nothing counts twice. Candidates’ bands show what they spent; their own donors are on The donors page. “Staff, fees and small vendors” combines payments to individuals (not named here), compliance software, card fees, smaller ads and items under $100. Brim-Edwards’s $58K to Patinkin Research was paid by the candidate personally and reported by her committee. Partnership for Progress gave Go Portland Go $32K; it is not a registered Oregon committee.
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