Welcome to the Lookout Look Back, a partnership between Lookout Eugene-Springfield and longtime Eugene illustrator Jesse Springer. Over 27 years, Springer created hundreds of illustrations capturing the political, social and cultural forces shaping life in Lane County and Oregon. You can view more of Springer’s illustrations or purchase his book on his website.

Friday, May 15

This week’s Lookout Look Back is about, what else? Elections.

The caption on Jesse Springer’s illustration from May 2010 reads: “Oregon’s primary yields a low 37% turnout.”

Well, as of Wednesday, turnout in this year’s primary was hovering at a robust … 14%. Not great, but still plenty of time for last-minute voters.

I decided to look back over Lane County records to check final turnouts for each primary election since Springer’s illustration. They were:

2012 – 37%
2014 – 31%
2016 – 57%
2018 – 36%
2020 – 45%
2022 – 36%
2024 – 36%

Note that the big jumps in 2016 and 2020 were in presidential election years, which 2026 is most definitely not. So 36% or 37% seems to be the target for what we might call “average turnout” for Lane County.

Will we get there this year? Here’s hoping for a late surge. And a reminder: It’s too late to mail your ballots, so get yours to an official drop box or the Lane County Elections Office, 275 W. 10th Ave. in Eugene, by 8 p.m. on election day, May 19.

Friday, April 27

The latest Lookout Look Back takes us all the way back to … October 2012. But it might was well have been 1912 as far as I’m concerned. 

The caption from illustrator Jesse Springer read: “Oregon all-in on vote by mail – The first state in the union to go all vote-by-mail sent out ballots to voters this week.”

I have a vague memory of accompanying my mom to a middle school gym so she could vote in the 1996 presidential election. As a lifelong Oregonian, those memories feel somewhere between quaint and annoying. But for people a bit older than me, heading down to the polling place on election Tuesday was a longtime tradition. Apparently it still is for those living in slightly less voting-friendly states.

Friday, April 10

For the latest Lookout Look Back, I decided to go way back to a Jesse Springer illustration from May 2007.

Oregonians were reeling from record-high gas prices. How high? Well, Springer’s caption put it best: “Oregon gas prices have risen 15¢ in the past week to $3.28 per gallon — 31 cents higher than the national average. Nationwide, only Washington and California are paying higher prices.”

Today? $3.28 gas would be the cheapest in the country, and 88 cents below the national average, according to AAA.

Alas, a gallon of gas in Oregon cost a hair over $5 as of Thursday, up 81 cents in just the past month. The war with Iran that began Feb. 28 has choked off oil supplies and spiked gasoline prices around the world.

Friday, March 27

This edition of the Lookout Look Back brings us a Jesse Springer illustration from 2021 that could easily have published any time over the past decade or so: where did the spring rain go?

So far, 2026 appears to be the same story: Most of Lane County (and all of Oregon) is currently seeing abnormally dry conditions, moderate or severe drought. With extremely low snow packs this winter, ski season was a bust at mountains across the state. And the National Interagency Fire Center on March 2 was already warning of “significant wildland fire potential forecasts.”

The roughly 386,000 acres of land that had burned across the country by the end of February was 422% above the 10-year average for the same time period.

And March has seen abnormally warm temperatures across much of the country, including here in the Willamette Valley.

Sorry if I bummed you out.

Friday, March 13

Springer created this illustration back in 2015, when the Oregon Legislature wasn’t acting on concerns from residents and environmental groups about the effects of aerial herbicide sprays over forest land near people and animals.

The Legislature eventually passed the Forest Aerial Spray Bill in 2020, mandating buffer zones to protect residents, waterways and fish. But concerns persist, including in Lane County, where supporters of the Watersheds Bill of Rights ballot measure proposed for the May ballot cite the effects of aerial pesticide spraying as a major concern.

For more than a decade, Elon Glucklich covered business, government and health care for several dailies and online news organizations across Oregon. His reporting and commentary has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.