Updated 10:05 a.m. Wednesday
Former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor holds a narrow lead over former U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee in initial results from Tuesday’s special election for Oakland mayor.
Taylor is ahead of Lee, 48%-46% in first-choice votes. When voters’ additional choices were included in a ranked-choice runoff, Taylor gained a 51%-49% advantage.
Those results will hold until at least Friday, when the Alameda County Registrar of Voters is expected to release its next update.
Taylor’s early lead mirrors the one he had in the 2022 mayor’s race, which he ultimately lost to Sheng Thao once all the votes were counted.
In a speech to supporters, Taylor called his run against Lee, who represented the East Bay in Congress for nearly three decades, “a true David and Goliath story.”
“We may not know the outcome of this race tonight, we may not know this week,” Taylor said. “But what we do know is that it is important that we count every vote, that everyone’s voice is heard. Democracy must prevail in Oakland and beyond.”
Vote-counting will continue for weeks, and another update is not expected from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters until Friday. Any ballot postmarked by Tuesday and received by the Registrar of Voters before April 22 can be counted. Election officials will also spend the next few weeks confirming the eligibility of voters who registered on Election Day, and others whose ballot signature did not match their registration.
Under the city’s ranked choice system, voters were able to rank up to five candidates in order of preference. Candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated in an instant runoff, and votes are redistributed until one candidate reaches a majority.
At Taylor’s election night gathering at a former Kaiser Permanente office tower downtown, more than a hundred supporters cheered and hugged when they learned of the initial results.
Just blocks away, Lee supporters swayed underneath a disco ball as a band played on a stage adorned by yellow and green balloons.
Lee urged supporters to enjoy themselves as they await further results from what she described as a “tough campaign.”
“This is going to be a long week, but we’re doing very well,” Lee said. “We have to really be very vigilant right now with these votes as they come in, because we know that people just mailed them today, yesterday.”
The winner of the mayoral election will finish out the remainder of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s term after she was recalled last year.
In an election for the District 2 City Council seat, Charlene Wang leads Kara Murray-Badal, 50%–26% in first-choice votes and 66% – 34% in the ranked-choice runoff. The seat, which includes neighborhoods around Lake Merritt, was vacated after Nikki Fortunato Bas was elected to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in November.
Voters appeared to embrace a sales tax increase, Measure A. Both Taylor and Lee agreed that Measure A would be crucial to fixing Oakland’s structural budget deficit.
Measure A was passing with 64% of the vote in initial returns.
“This is a key component that anybody who is going to expect to do anything in the city is going to need going forward,” said Seth Olyer, president of the Oakland Firefighters union, Local 55.
Since Thao was recalled, Oakland has had two interim mayors. City Council President Kevin Jenkins has served in the role since January, but he did not throw his hat in the ring to stay in the job.
Taylor, who in 2022 lost to Thao by less than 700 votes, ran a campaign focused on fixing “broken” Oakland, pitching himself to voters as a professional problem solver. He laid out ideas for tackling Oakland’s financial crisis at a granular level, while calling for a course correction from the decisions of the previous administration under Thao.
San José Mayor Matt Mahan came out in support of Taylor, as did organizers of the recalls of Thao and former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, several members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and other current and former local elected officials.
Lee entered the race in early January after weeks of speculation and after a group of elected officials, business owners and other community leaders urged her to run.
She ran on a platform of unity. Touting her track record of bringing billions in federal funding to Oakland during her years in Congress, Lee told voters she would unite the city’s fractured sectors and use her experience and contacts to attract outside investment through public-private partnerships.
Lee earned the endorsement of several of the city’s major labor unions and nearly all members of the Oakland City Council, leading some to predict she would be better positioned than Taylor to execute her agenda as mayor.
But Lee also faced questions about her decision to oppose the Thao recall and whether her experience in Congress would easily translate to that of mayor, comparing her to the late Ron Dellums, who was also urged to run for Oakland mayor after a storied career in Congress.
Taylor’s campaign spent nearly $400,000 through March 29, while Lee’s campaign spent slightly less, around $372,000.
Political groups operating independently from the campaigns also spent big money on mailers and online ads attacking each of the candidates, along with billboards and other campaign materials.
As of April 11, Taylor had benefited from $517,300 in outside spending from four groups — including a committee funded by fast-food franchise owners and another receiving money from Revitalize East Bay, which last year was a major backer of the recall of Price.
Other contributions came from Science Corporation CEO Max Hodak ($70,000), Lafayette real estate developer Ronald Nahas ($50,000) and Marty Glick, an advisor to the Golden State Warriors ($20,000).
Outside spending for Lee totalled $379,507 through April 11.
The California Nurses Association PAC contributed $200,000 to independent groups supporting Lee, with other major donations coming from the CEO of Kaiser Permanente and union-sponsored PACs like IFPTE Local 21 TJ Anthony PAC Fund, SEIU Local 1021 Candidate PAC and International Association of Firefighters Local 55 Political Action.
A week and a half after Lee announced her candidacy in January, federal prosecutors announced that Thao, her boyfriend Andre Jones, David Duong, the CEO of Oakland’s recycling contractor, California Waste Solutions, and his son, Andy Duong, were indicted on bribery and fraud charges.
The scandal, coupled with the city’s looming financial troubles, hung like a cloud over the race, with both Taylor and Lee distancing themselves from Thao and proposing transparency and accountability reforms.
Both candidates said they would order an audit of the city’s finances. Lee also proposed launching a public portal displaying city contracts, while Taylor advocated for requiring nonprofits to register with the city when lobbying city officials.
To learn more about how we use your information, please read our privacy policy.
