OREGON CITY, Ore. — As initial election results came in Tuesday night, challenger Craig Roberts held a significant lead over incumbent Tootie Smith in the race for chair of the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners.
Smith won the at-large commission chair position in 2020, presiding over the county for four years marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires and a surge in unsheltered homelessness. Roberts was Clackamas County Sheriff from 2005 through the end of 2020, but he left retirement to mount his campaign against Smith.
A third candidate in the race, April Lambert, trailed Roberts and Smith by a significant margin.
The Clackamas County chair position is nonpartisan, which means a candidate who receives over 50% of the vote will win outright in this May primary election. If neither candidate can claim a majority once all valid ballots are counted, the race will go to a runoff in November.
Results below are not final; ballots will continue to be counted, and the story will be updated as additional vote totals come in.
As of 10 p.m. Tuesday night, Roberts had just enough votes to potentially win the election outright, without facing Smith again in a November runoff. But if his lead were to slip as more votes are counted, that could change.
KGW's The Story spoke with both candidates in the run-up to the election. Both have extensive roots in Clackamas County and have held elected office before, so the community is already well-acquainted with them.
Smith said that she'd helped lead the county in curbing homelessness, and expressed pride in the stances they've taken to put pressure on lawmakers in order to halt tolling and roll back Measure 110.
"My team likes to say we do things the Clackamas Way, and it's a little bit different than we see across the other parts of the region," she said at the time. "And it's working, and I'm very happy we have such a dedicated staff working on this problem."
But Roberts has criticized leadership at the county, suggesting that they committed to building a courthouse that ballooned in cost and drained other areas of the budget. He pointed to a successful behavioral health program that he championed as sheriff, typifying the kinds of programs he'd push for as county chair.
"Right now what's happening is there is a lot of money for drug and alcohol treatment and a lot of services," Roberts told KGW. "But what is happening so often is they're throwing money at 'But let's get this building.' It's the program that runs the building that makes the difference. It's not the building."
