The BCC Weekly – Taking the “Blind” out of the BCC
There is a lot in common with the December 2024 recall vote for Commissioner John West and the January 2026 recall vote for Commissioner Chris Barnett. A near landslide of approximately 62% of voters said yes to the recall of both West and Barnett. Both recalled Josephine County commissioners in their recall campaigns attempted to gaslight the public into believing recall petitions had wrong information in them and that recalls were being done by “left wing” activist groups.
And now newly obtained voter data shows both commissioners lost the support of many republican voters after watching their performance in office. If history over the last year ends up repeating itself, the gaslighting and blaming the recalls on left wing political groups will continue. But we now have solid evidence that voters across the entire partisan spectrum were disappointed in the performance of these two commissioners.
Barnett and West’s original commissioner races turned into very partisan races and both Commissioners tried to turn their recall campaigns into even more of a partisan battle. By the County Charter, all County elected positions are nonpartisan but the political reality in recent years is that the local republican party has turned them into partisan races as much as possible. Even when Barnett was running against Colene Martin in the November 2024 General Election, Barnett and the local republican party tried to sway the public into thinking that Colene Martin was not a republican. Colene has been an active republican for as long as most of us can remember.
The inconvenient truth that these recalled commissioners refuse to acknowledge is that the majority of the leadership of the recall John West campaign were republicans including republican PCPs and the majority of the leadership of the recall Chris Barnett campaign were republicans or NAVs (nonaffiliated voters) including republican PCPs.
Now the inconvenient truth is that voter data as shown below shows that both recalled commissioners simply lost support from many republican voters between the time they were elected and the time the recall votes happened. How people voted is always confidential. However, the number of voters from each political party that cast a ballot in each election is public information. The numbers below are from reports produced by the Josephine County Clerk’s office of all current registered voters as of January 16, 2026, who cast a ballot in the original elections of John West (November 2022) and Chris Barnett (November 2024) as well as the December 2024 recall of John West and January 2026 recall of Chris Barnett.
In summary, registered republicans made up a higher percentage of votes cast in each recall election, and each recall election was a near landslide yes vote to recall each commissioner from office. It’s statistically safe to say that these two commissioners lost support from many republicans during their time in office.
