Two of Portland mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith's biggest supporters

: the

and the

.

The unions' joint decision follows several days of negative headlines regarding Smith's response to

at a 1993 college party, sending her to the emergency room for five to six stitches. And it arrives the same day that Smith launched the

of the Nov. 6 general election. In it, Smith touts his many endorsements, including those of the police and firefighters' unions. (Don't expect to see the ad on TV tonight: around 4 p.m. the Smith campaign announced it was pulling the ad for now.)

The Portland Metro Firefighters PAC

before he imposed

on donations Aug. 1.

The Keep Portland Safe PAC belonging to the police union

in the primary.

More

The two groups aren't siding with Smith's opponent Charlie Hales.

"Our members count on us to make recommendations and, at this point in the campaign, we cannot make a strong recommendation for either candidate," the groups wrote in a joint statement posted to the police union's website Thursday.

Smith's campaign manager, Henry Kraemer, did not initially have a comment when asked about the groups' decision.

Earlier Thursday, state

publicly that she had withdrawn her support for Smith. Mother PAC, another group that earlier announced it was backing Smith, also

to about 600 supporters saying it was weighing new information about Smith "very seriously."

Around 3 p.m. Kraemer issued the following statement from Smith: "Our commitment to necessary support and improvement to smart public safety remains unwavering. We deeply value the work our front-line city workers do and are grateful for the support they've given us. We're obviously disappointed to lose any support, but our strong base of grassroots support will remain our focus during the next 27 days. And we hope the those days will be spent talking about the future of the city."

Also Thursday, the Portland Association of Teachers announced it was sticking with Smith, a state legislator representing east Portland. The union's president, Gwen Sullivan, said Smith has been a strong advocate for education in the Legislature. That's what matters to her membership, she said, despite the fact that "what happened 20 years ago was a very, very unfortunate situation."

Around 3:45 p.m. the Portland firefighters' union issued the following statement:

It is with great consideration that we write to inform you of the decision by Local 43's Political Committee to withdraw the endorsement of Jefferson Smith for Portland Mayor.



As you have likely seen unfolding in the press recently, there have been numerous events in Mr. Smith's personal life that raise serious questions about his integrity, honesty, and fitness for office. To be clear, we support Mr. Smith's platform, and were we looking solely at candidates' positions on fire fighter issues, the endorsement would stand.



In this situation, however, the candidate's character clearly runs counter to our values. Quite simply, we do not take lightly the respect we all share as fire fighters in this community and cannot stand alongside someone with questionable ethics and decision-making skills.



Therefore, the Portland Fire Fighters' Association will not be endorsing a mayoral candidate from this point forward in this race.

Opponent Charlie Hales responded to the news with his own statement after 4 p.m.: "I think what they have done speaks for itself. The police and fire associations have seen what we've all seen over the past few weeks and were disturbed enough about it to take some action."

More to come.

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