Well, it’s been an interesting week, and for once, I don’t mean that entirely in a bad way. Let’s see if we can cruise the interwebs for readings that help explain the week. 

Tina Kotek beat President Donald Trump – no, I’m sorry, Christine Drazan – in their gubernatorial rematch. Kotek’s campaign focused on her efforts to keep Trump at bay; Drazan, for her part, focused on Kotek’s record in her first term. Kotek is among the nation’s least popular governors – but it turns out that Trump is even less popular, based on Tuesday’s results. It remains for political scientists to tell us if Drazan (who actually polled slightly higher this year than she did in 2022) would have fared better if a less divisive figure were occupying the White House. The Oregon Capital Chronicle breaks down the race.

Speaking of Trump, he was busy telling The New York Times on Tuesday that he was looking forward to working with Democrats, who handily won control of the U.S. House and Senate. Then, on Friday, he named Stephen Miller his new chief of staff. You undoubtedly have noticed over the years Miller’s willingness to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats.

It seems a safe bet that Trump will increasingly focus during the last two years of his lame-duck term on his efforts to remake Washington, D.C. in his image – you know, to “Make Washington Tacky Again.” Writing in The Atlantic, Janay Kingsberry says the next two months – before the next Congress convenes – may be critical. Kingsberry also writes that it’s possible that a fight over funding Trump’s building projects could trigger yet another government shutdown.  

I know you’re just as upset as I am that it was a bad week for Elon Musk. And for the Cybertruck. When will that guy ever catch a break? 

Here’s a somewhat more affectionate obituary for the Cybertruck.

Writing in The Atlantic, Alexandra Petri offers a sneak peek into the future of soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. It’s a little mean-spirited, but I’m sorry to confess that I didn’t mind: That guy never has failed to put my teeth on edge. 

Next week, students will return to Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, some three weeks after a teenage gunman killed four and injured two at the school. Parents at the school – and, really, people everywhere – are wondering how best to protect schools. This outstanding story by Lillian Mongeau Hughes at The Oregonian/Oregon Live spells out what’s effective – and what’s not. It’s not all about “hardening” school buildings. 

Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab reports that The Onion – the satirical monthly print publication and website – is apparently serious about buying the naming rights to a college football bowl game, as early as this season. And all this time I thought the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 24 teams next season would make all the other bowl games even more irrelevant. But I would tune into the Onion Bowl. 

Speaking of The Onion, Benton reports that the circulation of its monthly print publication is closing in on 100,000.  Only three U.S. newspapers have print circulation above 100,000 – The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. 

And speaking of the Nieman Lab: Here’s a link to its second quiz about the week’s big news in journalism. I did just about as poorly as I did last week – I must have been preoccupied with something else – but if you paid attention to the Weekend Reader item just above, you’re guaranteed to get at least one right. 

Weekend Reader readers have begged me to never again write about ranked-choice voting, but I feel compelled to do so. If you want to move onto another topic, go down to The Oregonian story about why your cat cannot win an election in Oregon, even if your furry friend draws the most write-in votes.

So here goes. (Warning: A journalist will attempt to do math in the next few paragraphs.)

Because Corvallis uses ranked-choice voting, we won’t know for possibly a week or more who won the rematch between Mayor Charles Maughan and Andrew Struthers, although Maughan appears to have a relatively substantial lead. 

But neither candidate won the majority of the vote required to win.

So what happens now is that the candidate with the fewest number of votes (in this case, Kimi Gatherum, with 825 votes unofficially as of Saturday morning) is eliminated. Election officials go through Gatherum’s ballots, and the No. 2 choice on each of those ballots is assigned to one of the remaining candidates. (For example, if one of the ballots listed Maughan as the second choice, that vote goes to him.) If no one still has a majority after this, the remaining candidate with the fewest votes (in this case, Kasey Haxton with 2,138 votes – impressive, for a political newcomer) is eliminated, and election officers reassign the next choices on those ballots to one of the remaining candidates.

It’s not as complicated as that last paragraph made it sound, but it does add extra work for elections offices.

So let’s do some math here: As of Saturday, Maughan led Struthers by 1,264 votes. Gatherum and Haxton between them had almost 3,000 votes between them, so it’s mathematically possible that Struthers could rally – but he’d have to carry the remaining 3,000 ballots by a better than 2-to-1 margin; possible, but a tough hill to climb. In the 2022 election, Maughan overtook Struthers thanks to those second-choice votes, but (if I recall correctly) the margin between the two at the start was smaller. 

So it’s the same lesson as 2022 for ranked-choice voters: The second (and the third and the fourth) choices you make on the ballot really matter. 

Now, as promised, that story about cats on the ballot: It turns out that even if your cat prevails in a write-in election, the animal is likely not eligible to serve – even if you know that your cat would do a better job in office than the buffoon who won. Gosia Wozniacka explains why in this story from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

But feel free to order some yard signs for Fluffy’s next election run; if Fluffy campaigns door-to-door (as you still must do to win a local race), I promise I will make Fluffy my second choice on my ranked-choice ballot. 

Speaking of the local elections, did you notice that David K. Barron – the candidate I praised last week for taking the time to write and pay to place a statement in the county voters pamphlet – romped to an easy win in his race for a seat on the Benton Soil & Water Conservation Board of Directors? He racked up 25,497 votes. True, he was unopposed – so he didn’t need to raise a finger. But he did, and I respect that. And democracy lives for at least another election.  

That’s it for this week. We’ll gather here next weekend to compare notes – and, hopefully, to plan watch parties for the Onion Bowl.