Election Day is here!

Happy Election Day, Oregon! In a few hours, we’ll finally be free from the barrage of campaign ads and onto the early November tradition of repeatedly refreshing the secretary of state’s election results pages.

Nearly 1.5 million voters had turned in their ballots as of yesterday afternoon, representing 47.5% of Oregon’s 3.1 million voters. Based on historical turnout in midterm elections, we’d expect about 600,000 more people are going to turn in their ballots by today’s 8 p.m. deadline. If you’re one of the stragglers, find your nearest dropbox here.

Our Election Day live blog is up now, but provided the day runs smoothly, don’t expect much from it until closer to 8 p.m. Alex and Shaanth will be reporting from the Democratic Party of Oregon’s shindig in Portland, while Mia will be with the Drazan camp in the ’burbs. While we expect the Dem event to resemble prior years, Drazan is taking a page out of Trump’s rally playbook by confining reporters to a designated area so they can’t interview her supporters. If you notice more interesting pictures, updates or interviews from Dems tonight, please know that wasn’t our choice. And if you’re at Drazan’s event and want to talk to a reporter, we hope you find Mia!

We’ll be covering the governor’s race, U.S. Senate and House races and the legislative balance of power tonight. We rely on the Associated Press’s race calls (good explainer here), but we’ll note who’s leading in initial returns. Initial results shortly after 8 p.m. reflect voters who turned in their ballots well before the deadline, because election officials still have to verify ballot envelope signatures before they can sort ballots for counting. In part because of that, it’s likely we won’t know the results of some close races tonight — it took until Thursday for the AP to call the 2022 governor’s race, for instance.

Our team will keep following subsequent results over the coming days, and any recounts, challenges or other developments. If you’re inclined to support our work, donations are tax-deductible and we promise to be way less annoying than all the PACs blowing up your phones.

News tips, feedback or questions? Email us at [email protected]