(Left to right) Julia Brim-Edwards, Sharon Meieran and Shannon Singleton, candidates for the county chair position in Multnomah County, in the November 2026 election.
Eli Imadali / OPB
Early returns show Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton leading the race for county chair over fellow Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards and former commissioner Sharon Meieran.
Before joining the county board in 2024, Singleton led the homeless service nonprofit JOIN, advised former Gov. Kate Brown on housing policy and briefly oversaw the county’s homeless services department. As commissioner, she represents District 2, an area which includes most North and Northeast Portland neighborhoods.
The county chair is essentially the CEO of the state’s most populous county, overseeing a billion-dollar budget, more than 6,000 staff, and critical government agencies — ranging from the county’s corrections department to its public health programs. While the job is largely administrative, previous chairs have used the commanding position to advance major policies, like tuition-free preschool or an overhauled regional approach to address homelessness.
Chair Jessica Vega Pederson has held the role since 2022.
This is a year of firsts for Multnomah County’s election system: In 2022, voters decided to get rid of primary elections and adopt ranked-choice voting. The 2026 election is the first to use the system in four years.
Under this system, a candidate must receive over 50% of the vote to win. If no one does, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are transferred to their voters’ next highest ranked candidate. If the race is close, this could mean it’ll take a bit longer to tally votes and declare a winner.
Singleton is running on the new ballot against Brim-Edwards, a former Nike lobbyist and Portland Public Schools board member, and Meieran, an emergency physician and former county commissioner.
While the position is nonpartisan, all three women are registered Democrats.
Singleton’s campaign has centered on investing in programs that get unhoused people into permanent housing, reducing the county’s reliance on contract work and establishing a more transparent budgeting process.
