Best of Tigard-Tualatin (The Times): How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Best of Tigard and Tualatin Awards are and who runs them

The Times, part of Pamplin Media Group, presents the Best of Tigard and Tualatin Awards, a readers' ballot for two Oregon cities that sit side by side. The winners page describes the program in plain terms: "Announcing the winners of the Best of Tigard and Tualatin Awards, and discover great new places to eat, shop and more." It is "Presented by The Times and valleytimes.news," so the program carries the names of the newspaper and its news site.

Voting takes place on Second Street, under a Pamplin Portland account, on a page titled "25 Best of Tigard Tualatin." The ballot type is a combined nomination and voting ballot, which means readers can propose and then choose favorites inside one program. The paper hosts the winners announcement and the platform hosts the ballot.

The pairing of two cities in one title is a design choice worth noticing. Tigard and Tualatin share a readership, a newspaper and many customers, so a combined list lets a restaurant, a salon or a store appear before the same audience in both places. A reader who commutes between them does not need to guess which ballot a business belongs on.

For a business in Tigard or Tualatin, this is a local-paper award with a clear public life: a ballot in the autumn and an announcement afterward. The table sets out the facts that the pages state.

The 2025 window, the winners and the confirmed years

The platform lists dates for the 2025 ballot: October 14, 2025 to December 17, 2025. That is a window of about two months, spanning October, November and December, and the platform shows it as closed. The program is confirmed for 2024 and 2025.

The way a platform labels the window also helps a reader. Second Street describes the 2025 ballot as a nomination and voting ballot and marks it closed, so a visitor arriving in 2026 sees a finished round, not a live one. The winners announcement gives the same signal from the newspaper's side: the results are out, and readers are invited to explore the places that won.

The text on file does not give the day on which nominations turn into voting, and it prints no category list or per-voter limit; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. A round that has ended shows what the cycle looks like: an autumn ballot and a results page. A business that wants to take part in the next round should watch The Times for a new window, since a 2026 ballot has not been announced in the pages on file.

How a reader takes part in the combined ballot

The ballot sits on a Second Street page. A reader opens it, proposes or chooses favorites in Tigard and Tualatin and submits the picks while the window is open. A combined ballot means the same page serves the early stage, when names are suggested, and the later stage, when favorites are chosen.

That structure rewards businesses that stay visible for the whole window. A shop that is named by many people in the early weeks is more likely to appear for voters later, so reminders belong at the start, not only at the end. The window of October 14 to December 17 is long enough for a business to remind customers more than once.

One practical habit is to keep a short list. Before opening the ballot, a reader can jot down the places in Tigard and Tualatin they would recommend to a visitor: where to eat, where to shop and which small business deserves attention. With that list, the ballot takes minutes, and the choices reflect real experience instead of whichever name appears first.

The pages on file do not say whether a voter needs an account, how often a person may vote or which categories exist. The live ballot answers those questions. After the window closes, the paper's announcement lists the winners, and readers are invited to discover new places to eat and shop. Because Tigard and Tualatin are named together in the program's title, a business in either city can compete. Someone who lives in one city and shops in the other can vote for both.

How the Tigard-Tualatin ballot compares with other Oregon polls

Oregon's other readers' ballots on this site are Bend Magazine Readers' Choice Awards, Best of Eugene, the Best of the Mid-Valley Community's Choice, Best of Portland, the Coast Weekend Readers' Choice Awards and the Eugene Community's Choice Awards.

The comparison helps set expectations. A readers' choice ballot for a large city draws huge numbers of nominees, so a business can feel lost; a two-city ballot is smaller, and a business with loyal local customers has a realistic chance of being noticed. The sibling pages differ on timing too, since each organizer chooses its own season, and the Tigard and Tualatin window reaches into December, later than many.

Best of Portland is the nearest big-city neighbor, but it covers a far larger market. The Tigard and Tualatin ballot is a small-market contest, and its Pamplin ties and Second Street host set it apart from the others.

Building support for a Tigard or Tualatin business

Timing matters in a long window. Because the 2025 round began on October 14 and did not close until December 17, a business that asks once in October may be forgotten by December. A better plan is a steady rhythm: an early mention, a mid-window reminder and a last call before the close, each pointing to the same Second Street page.

It also helps to tell customers what they are voting for. The winners page talks about discovering great new places to eat, shop and more, so a business can describe itself in those terms and let readers decide whether it belongs on their list.

A small market means word of mouth counts. A business can ask regular customers to name it on the Second Street page and repeat the request over the long autumn window. The Times is the authority on any limit.

Our guide to getting more votes online covers outreach for readers' polls, and buy votes online describes the paid service. The paper has published nothing about outside help in the text on file, and a win cannot be promised.