Will Trend Toward Moderation Hold in Oakland Election?

Former Oakland City Council member Loren Taylor leads retired Rep. Barbara Lee in the race to become Oakland’s next mayor.

On Tuesday evening, the moderate candidate was leading with 51 percent of the ranked-choice votes, with the progressive candidate trailing at 49 percent, with 49,000 of the ballots counted, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The overall turnout represented nearly 20 percent of Oakland’s registered voters. The final results of the mayoral race aren’t expected for days. Alameda County officials don’t expect to release the next results until Friday.

The matchup mirrors the moderate challenge by Daniel Lurie, who edged out Mayor London Breed in San Francisco, as well as moderates prevailing in a district attorney’s race in Los Angeles.

Taylor, whose pledge for more pragmatic leadership helped him challenge the political power of the city’s labor unions, was cautiously optimistic.

“It’s important that we count every vote,” Taylor said in a speech Tuesday night at a campaign watch party in downtown Oakland. “Democracy will prevail in Oakland and beyond.”

Lee, considered a stabilizing force for a city in a crisis of leadership, also struck an upbeat tone.

“We all know this is going to be a long week, but we’re doing very well,” Lee told supporters, imploring them to remain “very vigilant.”

The special election ended a five-month transition for Oakland, after 60 percent of voters removed former Mayor Sheng Thao from office in November. She was charged with bribery and conspiracy in a federal indictment early this year.

If Taylor prevails, he would complete her term until November 2026. On the campaign trail, he vowed to take a wrecking ball to a government he described as fundamentally broken.

Lee, a progressive icon and veteran of Congress, possessed a political gravity widely seen as too strong for any challenger to overcome. She had pledged to unify labor and business in a city that grew deeply divided during Thao’s tenure.

Each tried to depict the other as the establishment choice, according to the Mercury News.

Taylor, who served a four-year council term until 2022, stressed his background as a business consultant and biomedical engineer. He did not shy away from his alliances in the tech world.

Lee, picking up widespread political endorsements as she returned to being a full-time Oakland resident after 26 years in Washington, painted Taylor as a “City Hall insider” partially to blame for the city’s perilous budget deficit.

Taylor promised he could make “hard choices,” including worker cuts. Lee called slashing jobs a “last resort.”

Taylor had the money edge, outspending Lee by $831,541 to $744,866 as of April 8, according to the Mercury News.

Taylor raised money from a broad swath of residents, while an independent political committee named Responsible Leadership for Oakland spent $280,000 in support. The committee’s biggest donor was San Francisco resident Max Hodak, a biomedical engineer who launched several tech startups, who gave $70,000.

He also raised $51,000 from Ronald Nahas, a partner of Rafanelli and Nahas, a developer based in Lafayette.

Lee was backed by labor unions. Supporters of Barbara Lee, an independent committee backing the former politician, spent $243,000 to oppose Taylor.

The committee received $150,000 from the California Nurses Association, $25,000 from SEIU Local 1021 and $15,000 from the Oakland firefighters’ union. But not all the support came from labor: Kaiser Permanente CEO Gregory Adams contributed $20,000 and Pacific Gas and Electric gave $10,000.

— Dana Bartholomew