The project, Who’s Buying PDX, was assembled by Kaliko Castille, civic engagement director at APANO, using Oregon campaign-finance records and the AI model Claude. Castille said he developed it in a personal capacity to make donor connections easier to see. The site provides a downloadable data set and explains how it defines conservative donors.

The candidates highlighted are Multnomah County chair hopeful Julia Brim-Edwards; Portland City Council District 3 candidates Steve Novick and Kellie Torres; and District 4 candidates Eli Arnold, Eric Zimmerman and Olivia Clark. Portland council races are officially nonpartisan, though several candidates are registered Democrats.

The project grouped 245 Portland conservative donors into 132 households based on reported street addresses, then traced contributions to the six candidates. Its figures show that 52% of Zimmerman’s 254 individual donors who gave him more than $100 also supported Republican campaigns or other Portland conservative candidates since 2023. The same was true of 49% of Arnold’s 83 donors over that threshold and 37% of Clark’s 292.

In District 3, the project found that 45% of the 201 donors who gave Torres at least $100 had also contributed to conservative campaigns. Novick’s campaign saw conservative-donor support rise from 19% in his 2024 election to 40% this year, according to the project. Brim-Edwards had 468 individual donors, 46% of whom had also donated to conservative candidates, the site reported.

The figures do not include donations through Portland’s Small Donor Elections program, which does not make individual donor data readily available, Castille said. That exclusion is significant: Arnold and Torres both pointed to broad support through the program in responding to the findings. The project’s definitions also shape its results. It counts a “GOP donor” as someone who has given since 2006 to one of 25 Republican-aligned candidates, committees or caucuses, and a “Portland conservative” as someone who supported at least one of six specified right-leaning local campaigns.

Castille said the connections matter in a state where Democratic candidates often face their most consequential contests in party primaries and where, in his view, moderate candidates can receive support from business interests and donors who also back Republicans. The overlap, he argued, offers voters information beyond how a candidate describes their own politics.

The project also draws attention to the Portland Metro Chamber’s political network. The Chamber’s United for Portland Action Fund has redirected nearly all of its $412,000 this cycle to closely related political committees, including Coalition for Portland’s Future, according to the reported state records. The two PACs share a director, Doug Moore, and the Chamber’s lobbyist, Jon Isaacs. United for Portland has also been a major funder of a billboard campaign that is the subject of a state elections-law complaint alleging that new PACs were created to obscure the source of political spending. The complaint is an allegation, not a finding of wrongdoing.

Swickard Management Co. gave United for Portland $150,000 in August and September, with a further $50,000 recorded in October that was not included in the Who’s Buying PDX data. Jeff Swickard, who has acquired several downtown properties, said his political donations reflect his support for animal welfare, public safety and affordability, and that he backs people and causes across the political spectrum.

Candidates offered different explanations for the donor overlap. Zimmerman said his endorsements and support from labor unions reflect a broad coalition, and described himself as a “big tent candidate.” Arnold said the figures capture only a small share of his overall support and do not demonstrate significant conservative backing. Torres said most of her donors are Portland residents contributing through the Small Donor Elections program. Clark did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

Brim-Edwards’ campaign manager, Tony Morse, said people across the political spectrum support her experience and want county government to address community needs. Novick said some business donors may be supporting candidates who are not affiliated with Democratic Socialists of America, while adding that he returns contributions when he identifies a potential conflict of interest.

Castille built the project over a weekend, and AI-assisted data work can produce errors. The site describes its sorting methods, but the results should be read as a map of giving under its stated definitions—not proof that donors control candidates’ decisions. For voters, the data offers one additional way to examine who is financing local campaigns, alongside candidates’ platforms, endorsements and public records.