Ted Wheeler celebrates his victory in the race to become Portland mayor at Blitz Ladd, a sports pub in Southeast Portland, on May 17, 2016.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Oregon's Tuesday primary election is expected to be the largest in the state's history, meaning that more voters than ever participated.
Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins said her agency estimates more than 1.2 million votes were cast.
“We do think that we’ll get up over 1.2 million in ballots submitted in this election and that actually beats the number of votes that came in in 2008’s primary,” Atkins said.
In the 2008 primary, 1.1 million Oregonians cast ballots. So far, more than one million ballots have been counted in Tuesday’s primary.
While the state has more people voting than ever before, the turnout percentage is lower for this primary than for the 2008 primary.
Hillary Clinton supporters in Portland for the May 17 Democratic presidential primary
Nate Sjol / OPB
About 129,000 registered to vote between the end of last year and the April 26 deadline to register to vote in the primary, Atkins said. Of that, some 50,000 were registered to vote under Oregon's new motor voter law, which automatically registers people to vote when they get a driver's license, she said.
Visits from Sen. Bernie Sanders, former president Bill Clinton, assumed Republican nominee Donald Trump and Gov. John Kasich also helped generate interest in the primary.
“Quite often the presidential primaries are completely settled before we get to our May primary,” Atkins said. “This time that wasn’t quite as true.”
