It's election season again, with ballots for the May primary headed to Portland mailboxes within the next few days.

Why it matters: Voters will decide a Republican nominee for governor, weigh a transportation funding measure and consider several local proposals.

Catch up quick: Arguably the highest-profile item on the ballot is Measure 120, which would hike the state's gas tax from $0.40 to $0.46 and raise registration fees for most vehicles to fund Oregon's transportation budget.

• Democratic lawmakers in Salem needed a special session to pass a fix for the transportation budget deficit and finally passed a bill last fall.
• In Oregon, voters can reject bills passed in the Legislature through a referendum.
• Republican opponents of the bill needed 78,000 signatures to put the question to voters — and gathered roughly 200,000.

Yes, but: Neither side has spent much money trying to convince voters of their arguments, per the Oregonian.

State of play: Republican voters will also decide which of more than a dozen candidates they'll run against Gov. Tina Kotek, who isn't facing any significant Democratic challengers in her bid for reelection.

• State Sen. Christine Drazan, who lost to Kotek by just 3.5 percentage points in a crowded three-way race last time around, had a sizable lead over the field in the most recent polling.
• Ex-Blazer and businessman Chris Dudley, with the backing of Nike billionaire Phil Knight, State Rep. Ed Diehl and Marion County commissioner Danielle Bethell round out the top four candidates.
• In campaign ads and on the debate stage, all of the Republican candidates have focused more on criticizing Kotek than each other.

Zoom out: Two Portland-area Democratic legislators — seen as business-friendly moderates — are facing challenges from the left.

• State Sen. Janeen Sollman of Hillsboro is facing a challenge from Myrna Muñoz of Forest Grove in Senate District 15 and Rep. Daniel Nguyen is running against John Wasielewski, both from Lake Oswego, in House District 38.
• The incumbents have previously signaled openness to providing tax incentives to spur business growth, while the challengers are running on raising taxes on corporations to fund public services, per the Oregonian.

Keep reading

Multnomah County voters will weigh in on an unusually active judicial ballot next month, with four highly contested races shaping the local bench.

The big picture: Three experienced judges are stepping down, opening key Circuit Court seats and drawing a crowded field of 14 candidates.

Zoom in: A deep bench of candidates — with backgrounds spanning public defense, prosecution and private practice — are competing for the three open seats. Positions are nonpartisan.

Position 2

• Chris Behre is an attorney with Metropolitan Public Defender since 2013.
• Anit Jindal is a partner at civil law firm Markowitz Herbold.
• Diane S. Sykes runs her own civil rights law firm.
• Laura Maurer Rowan works at the Department of Justice.
• Juliet Britton is a law professor at the University of Oregon and a Beaverton Municipal Court judge.

Position 5

• Joanna T. Perini-Abbott is a professor at Lewis & Clark and litigator at Angeli & Calfo.
• John Casalino serves as a senior assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice.

Position 14

• Kevin Spence is a private practice probate attorney.
• Michael Lee works in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office.
• Elizabeth Savage runs her own civil litigation firm.
• Bradford Gerke is a divorce attorney.
• Joe Hagedorn has served as a judge in Multnomah County family court.
• Heidi Brown is a Portland chief deputy city attorney.
• Kristine Almquist is a sitting judicial officer in Multnomah County.

Meanwhile, a fourth race emerged late. Appellate public defender Peter Klym filed to challenge sitting Judge Adrian Brown just 30 minutes before the deadline.

• Brown has been publicly feuding with District Attorney Nathan Vasquez over her case load.
• Eight incumbent judges on the ballot face no opposition.

What we're watching

🏟️ Gov. Tina Kotek visited the Moda Center yesterday to sign a bipartisan bill that will give the city and state joint ownership of the arena and allow the state to put $365 million toward Moda renovations via bonds.

• Kotek said she expects the city to commit more than $100 million toward the project. (The Oregonian)

✋ Teachers in Woodburn reached a tentative agreement with the school district that will limit when federal immigration agents can enter school campuses, a first in the state. (KATU)

🎨 Portland's arts tax could see changes soon — with fewer people paying the tax, but those paying shelling out nearly twice as much — under a proposal being considered by the city council. (OPB)

👶 A passenger on a Delta flight from Georgia gave birth to a baby midflight, just 30 minutes before landing at PDX. (KGW)

"I didn't know she would keep me safe. I thought it would be punk rock. It was pretty clear that it wasn't going to be a biopic. This was an artist vibing on an artist."

— Oregon author Lidia Yuknavitch on Kristen Stewart's "The Chronology of Water," a theatrical adaptation of her memoir of the same name.

If you're going to eat anything this week, make it the khao soi at OK Chicken.

• A delicately balanced coconut curry broth, which has sweet, spicy and sour notes, coats chewy egg noodles and marinates hunks of chosen protein while a garnishing of pickled mustard greens and squeeze of lime round out each bite.

The restaurant has only been open since January, but it's clear that this humble bowl of soup — with origins pointing back to Chiang Mai — is easily up there with the dishes that have defined Portland dining.

If you go: OK Chicken & Khao Soi (3226 SE Division St.) is open daily at 5pm.